Elysium
by notmanos
Summary: Post X2: Is it the end of the world as they know it? Bob, the XMen, and several of their friends ? are forced to pull together for what may indeed be the final battle. To end it all, someone may have to make the ultimate sacrifice.
1. Part 1

Disclaimer: The character of Wolverine & the X Men is owned by 20th Century Fox and Marvel Comics. No copyright infringement intended. The characters of Angel are owned by 20th Century Fox and Mutant Enemy. Bob and his bunch are all mine.  
  
N.B.: Takes place shortly after "X2", and directly after "Gravity".  
  
________  
  
ELYSIUM  
  
________  
  
1  
  
All in all, he was surprised he'd managed to hold out this long.  
  
Scott headed down the outside stairs quietly, garbage bag slung over his shoulder, but he didn't understand why he was trying to be quiet - didn't he deliberately pick late nights (and early mornings) to head out of his place to avoid running into other people? It wasn't a comment on the quality of his neighbors - not really - he just didn't want to risk being recognized.  
  
As time went on, and people forgot, their ten second attention span caught by other things, he was quickly fading from memory (if he had ever been in it). Oh, he still got stares, but it was the kind of stares he usually got for having strange headgear. He had discovered if you went shopping at twenty four hour supermarkets at or after midnight, you got almost no stares at all. People were either too tired, or had seen a lot stranger than you.   
  
Although it did leave him exhausted, he had learned to appreciate his late night forays. It seemed quieter at night, less hectic, save for Friday and Saturday nights, when there was an exponential increase in drunks. But Sundays and Mondays were as dead as a graveyard. The drawback was it increased his sense of isolation tenfold.   
  
It wasn't new. If Scott allowed himself to think about it, he had spent a lot of his life feeling lonely; most of it, in fact. Only while at Xavier's - and after meeting Jean - did that gnawing ache go away. Now it was back, full force, but he was trying to tough it out as long as he could. Why? Maybe he wanted to see if he could beat it, or at least learn to live with it. Or maybe he was just masochistic.  
  
He had discovered some non-alcoholic ways to blunt the pain too: food and television. It was awful, but he discovered addictions to bags of Sun Chips and microwave popcorn, and BBC America. He could eat those foods and watch that channel all day. (Oh, how he loved The Office. It made him glad no one would ever hire him for an office job. Why couldn't American sitcoms be that funny?)  
  
But neither of those things were good. He was blunting the pain, not handling it. All it did was briefly distract him from the fact that he really, really wanted to go back home. And Xavier's was home; it was the closest thing to one he had ever had. He didn't want to go crawling back with his tail between his legs, so he found himself trying to devise ways to go back, some pretext that wouldn't stink of desperation and loneliness. So far, he hadn't come up with anything he liked.  
  
Had he, in some way, been waiting for Jean?  
  
It was another thing he didn't like to think about, but he supposed he was. But it made him wonder what he was waiting for - her to turn up on the doorstep, saying, "I missed you," or "Please come home" ? He had no idea, and it was too depressing to think about.   
  
He did wonder how everyone was doing (Did the kids miss him? Had Logan snapped and killed someone yet?), and he'd almost called a dozen times, but he didn't go through with it. Xavier would pick up his mood over the telephone, and he didn't want him to know how bereft he felt.  
  
But what kind of life was this? He slept most of the day, and now spent his nights watching cable t.v., taking out his garbage, and going to the Safeway. There were no words for how sad that was.   
  
He was beginning to understand why Logan spent so much time in bars, no matter how smelly and depressing they were - at least, if you had to be alone, you could be alone in a crowd.  
  
Scott went around the back of the apartment building - they tried to keep the communal dumpster as far from the apartment building as possible - when he realized he heard people talking.  
  
He must have heard them earlier, but dismissed them as the loud humpers in unit thirty two. (One night, when he had one too many wine coolers, he considered shouting, "We know you're faking, so will you keep it down?" but it was such a horrible thought he didn't. But she made the exact same noises all the time, in the same sequence. It was like a scripted performance - how could it not be faking? He'd heard more realism in Keanu Reeves films.)  
  
"- over or not?" He heard a man say. He may have been trying to keep his voice low, but with so few cars on the road and a dead silence smothering the complex like a shroud, his voice traveled far.  
  
"Fuck you," another man spat in reply. He really wasn't trying to keep his voice down.   
  
The dumpster - for whatever reason - was kept in a latticework corral (did people try and steal dumpsters?) in the rear parking lot. He could have been seen if the men were paying attention, in spite of the poor lighting, but they weren't - he could see their silhouettes, one of the men taller than the other by six inches, and heavier by maybe seventy pounds or so, both standing beside a slightly battered Escalante that he had never seen in the lot before.   
  
"You want to die, you punk ass bitch?" The taller man said to the shorter one. "Give it!"  
  
The smaller man shifted something on his shoulder. A knapsack? "Eat me. Tell your boss he can join you." He then held up his hand - giving him the finger, no doubt - and started to turn away.  
  
Scott had a bad feeling about the hostility and body language of all of this even before the big man reached inside his coat.  
  
He was going to shout a warning, but the man was fast; he already had the gun out.   
  
From that point on, it was sheer instinct for Scott to do what he did next: fire a shot from his visor.  
  
The narrow red beam slammed into the gun, sending it flying over the roof of the car, and lighting up the night in a brief flash of crimson.  
  
Mortified, he instantly ducked behind the dumpster and dropped his garbage bag, hoping no one saw him. What the hell was he thinking?! He was just getting past notoriety - did he really want to start that up again?  
  
"What the fuck was that?!" The smaller guy exclaimed. "What the fuck did you bring with you?"  
  
"Me?" The big guy responded, perturbed. "Who's protectin' you?"  
  
"What? Like I got fuckin' protection …"  
  
"Good," the big guy said, and the sound of a knife being pulled from a sheath echoed through the lot. A big knife.  
  
Oh, damn it. Maybe he would be risking renewed exposure, but hell, he couldn't let someone get hurt, could he? He moved out from behind the dumpster, and saw the man had pulled … a machete? Where the hell did someone keep a sheath for that?   
  
The big guy must have seen him out of the corner of his eye, because he suddenly spun on his heels, pulling back his arm as if to throw the blade at him, so Scott shifted his aim from the machete to his chest, and fired.  
  
This beam was wider and harder - perhaps a little too much so. The big guy slammed back against the car hard enough to make it rock, and shatter one of the side windows on impact. The machete went flying out of his hand, and when he finally plopped face first to the pavement, out cold, Scott saw the big guy had left a huge dent in the car's paneling. Oops.  
  
The smaller guy with the knapsack was gaping at him. "Holy fuck! What are you?"  
  
Scott took a step towards him, but the guy tensed, so he stopped. Only then did he see he had strange, compound eyes, dark bruises in his pale ovoid face, topped with spiky brown hair. Demon or mutant? "It's okay," he told him, holding up his hands to show he wasn't armed. "I'm not a bad -"  
  
"Who sent you?" The man interrupted, everything in his posture suggesting he was about to bolt.  
  
"No one. I just -"  
  
"You want it, man? Take it. Just don't shoot me with the laser." He said, throwing the knapsack at him as he ran off in the opposite direction.   
  
Scott caught the bag as it thumped into his chest, but it was more reflex than anything else. "Hey, wait -" he called out, but it was hardly out of his mouth before the guy had seemingly disappeared, merging into the night like a shapeshifter. He still wasn't sure if he was demon or mutant, but damn he could run fast.  
  
Scott looked around, to see if the noise and light show had attracted attention, but there were no lights on that hadn't been on before, and most of those were just the dim blue glow of television screens. People must have heard; they just must not have cared.   
  
He looked down at the tatty khaki knapsack he was inexplicably holding, and wondered what he should do with it. He could hardly give it to the robber - or whatever he was - when he woke up, but what else could he do with it? Somehow, he doubted it belonged in a "lost and found". Curiosity got the better of him, and he decided to look inside.  
  
He expected drugs or something like that (neither of the men could have been up to any good in a deserted parking lot at one in the morning) , but when he untied the knot holding it shut and forced it open, that wasn't what he found. What he saw was … what the hell was that?  
  
Scott had a feeling he had just found his reason to go back to the mansion.  
  
2  
  
The really nice thing about Yasha is she wouldn't nag you to talk about something if you really didn't feel like it. The bad thing was, she turned that against you: if you wouldn't talk about something, she wouldn't talk about something either. So she hadn't told him why she was in Los Angeles, but then again, he hadn't told her about what happened to Leonie, and things after that. He supposed that was only fair.  
  
But he also supposed he was going to have to tell her something. He'd discovered he had new nightmares. The first was the same old one - strapped down and helpless, knives cutting into flesh, needles like lances puncturing his bones - but the second one was Leonie's head being   
  
blown apart with a startling crystal clarity that couldn't have been real.   
  
Even Yasha knew he was waking up a little more rattled than usual. But he didn't even know how to begin talking about such a thing. He had a feeling if he voiced anything beyond the plain, utilitarian "She died," he would lose it.  
  
And why? He didn't know her at all; and what he did know of her he didn't necessarily like. So why did this hit so fucking hard?   
  
Maybe it was because she was just a kid, and a pawn of those fucks, those stupid fucks who kept ruining what little he had of a life. Or maybe it was because of what she represented: another life, maybe even family. Some signifier that he hadn't always been this -   
  
(animal)  
  
- nothing, this man without a past worth remembering, this tool of other, craftier people. It gave him a momentary insight into why he vaguely hung around Xavier's, even though he really didn't like kids, and didn't get any of the adults : maybe he wanted to be more than he was. Maybe he was even trying to atone for something. But what? Could you technically atone for a past you couldn't remember?  
  
It was usually at that point in his circular train of thoughts that Logan gave up. It was like a koan, an ancient riddle that would never have an accurate answer. He had to go on instinct because it was the only thing he had that had never been well and truly fucked over.   
  
To his knowledge.  
  
Although it was fun in the hotel room, he realized he needed to go out and get a drink - fast - but as it turned out, Yasha knew this bar on the Lower West Side called Paranoiac's (cute name), where Humans and demons intermingled easily, but it was not a fetish club like Akki-Netsuai (thank god … or whatever). It was just a bar, all dark wood and low amber lighting, cozy without being too crowded or too homely, and most of the people who came here didn't even know they were mingling with demons, as they were mostly of the "passing for Human" variety. And keeping to its "Paranoiac" name, pictures of famous "conspiracies" (JFK, UFO's, J. Edgar Hoover, Bigfoot) hung on the walls, along with a movie poster for "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas". Logan wasn't sure what the conspiracy angle was there, unless it was the fact that Hunter S. Thompson - the main character of the movie - was considered paranoid. Maybe they were just big Terry Gilliam fans.  
  
Curiously though, after he and Yasha came in, a pair of vampires near the back stared at them, whispered, and eventually ducked out in a big hurry. They debated which one of them they had recognized, since they both had rather fearsome demon world reputations. Since the vamps were no longer around to ask, both he and her had to live with their own opinions.   
  
They had good Irish and Canadian beers, and the cigarette smoke was at tolerable levels, as was the stereo, playing what seemed to be the entire Stevie Ray Vaughn collection (not necessarily a bad thing). At some point the started to relax; he didn't know when. It just occurred to him when he was on his third pint. Weird; he felt pretty good. There was even an easy companionship in the silences he shared with Yasha.  
  
It was around one in the morning when they decided to call it and go back. Logan was kind of amazed. He'd had a good time at a bar, and never even got into a fight. Sometimes that was rare.  
  
Considering how traffic was still pretty bad, and it was a reasonably nice night, they decided just to walk back. And again, Logan had another weird moment of realization. Here he was, walking down the street with his arm around the shoulders of a vampire. It was made doubly weird by the fact that she had an arm around his waist, like they were a real couple or something. Could they be?  
  
The logical side of him knew this would never, ever work, not in a million years. But it was a nice thought, even for a moment.  
  
He thought they were in for a bizarrely peaceful night when he realized he smelled blood.  
  
They were walking down one of the few quiet streets, where all the shops had already closed up for the evening, stretching metal safety grating over windows and doors, making it look as if they had turned into some kind of consumer cell block. "You getting' that?" He wondered. No rest for the wicked, right?  
  
She gave him a look like it was a stupid question, and admittedly it was - she was a vampire, after all. "Yeah. Ahead of us."  
  
"Alley," he agreed.   
  
It was between a closed up thrift store and a cheap teriyaki place, the kind that seemed to spring up in under a minute in any place where another business shut down - the modern day strip mall fungus? A capitalistic staph infection?  
  
(How many beers had he had?!)  
  
As they slowly approached, headlights of cars from the intersection occasionally panning by, Logan saw nothing but badly dented and overflowing garbage cans; from the scent, a frequent toilet of animals and Humans alike. But much, much more rank with blood.   
  
The reek was so great as they came to the mouth of the alley, his eyes were nearly watering, and he didn't understand how no one else walking by couldn't smell it.   
  
Yasha suddenly grabbed his arm, hard, and he saw she had morphed into vamp face. "Mucho bad mojo here," she said, her overabundance of teeth making her lisp slightly.   
  
He had a bad feeling about this place - maybe that was why. Yet still … why? All he saw was garbage cans bracketing the sides of a narrow alley that ended in a torn chain link fence, leading to a cut through behind the buildings. There wasn't even a would-be mugger/rapist or derelict occupying it.  
  
But when a set of headlights scudded along the brick wall, he saw the symbols painted on in blood.  
  
Most of the exact shapes of the symbols were hard to make out, because the blood was fresh and trickled down the wall, not yet dry enough to stick like it should. But most looked like gibberish, or the characters of an obscure and ancient alphabet lost to time.   
  
And that's when a man appeared before them, as if coalescing from the fleeing shadows. "Be gone, vampire," he hissed, and threw something in Yasha's face.  
  
"Shit!" She exclaimed, as her skin started instantly smoking and sizzling. Holy water?  
  
The shadow man threw some on him as well, and Logan just glared at him.  
  
The shadow man seemed to realize he made a mistake. "Oops," he said, as Logan grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall. He seemed to weigh almost nothing, and his flesh felt oddly malleable beneath his fingers, more clay than skin. Logan slammed him into another wall, as this seemed to have no effect on him, and then pinned him to the torn chain link fence at the end of the alley, one hand still on his throat. He held up his other fist at eye level and popped the claws. "What the fuck's the idea, asshole? That's my girlfriend."  
  
In the uncertain light, Logan could seen the shadow man actually had skin the color of old parchment, and it was covered in black tattoos , seemingly from the same arcane language that he had seen on the wall.   
  
And the tattoos moved. They writhed on his skin as if in pain, as if trying to escape an unseen crucifixion. And Logan saw, as the light scudded by, that the man had no eyes at all - they had been gouged from his face. All that was there were bloody pits, with tears of crimson trailing down his face, and with a sudden twinge in his gut, Logan realized this man had poked his own eyes out, and used the blood to paint on the walls.  
  
How did he see what he was painting?  
  
Jesus fucking Christ, why did he feel that this man was staring back at him?   
  
He smiled, the open and sharp grin of a madman, and said, "Go."  
  
Suddenly Logan was thrown bodily out of the alley, and into the street.  
  
He had no idea how it fucking happened, but he had no time to actually think about it. His backbone collided violently with a taxi driving by, and as he rolled over the hood, he slammed down onto the street … and into the path of a moving car.  
  
A Road Ranger, actually. He heard the driver slam on the brakes, but the skid carried the front wheels over his chest.   
  
Until that moment, Logan had no idea how much these damn things weighed until it threatened to crush him. Even as he felt the blood vessels in his skin pulverize and burst under the pressure, his adamantium ribcage held (he really didn't know how; the truck felt as heavy as the world) until the wheel thumped back to the asphalt, leaving him in relatively safety beneath the carriage of the vehicle. He heard more screeching brakes, and the truck jolted as someone slammed into the rear bumper, but it didn't push the tires back on him, and that was all he cared about right now. Honking and cursing in three different languages followed.  
  
Skin burning as his healing factor went to work, he realized two things: he was fucking lucky he was an indestructible mutant, or he'd be dead right now. And some assholes actually paid for undercoating.   
  
Then he realized he'd just left his blinded undead girlfriend alone with some kind of crazy ass mystical maniac.  
  
He shoved himself out from under the truck, feeling a wetness on his shirt he knew was blood. He had the vague impression at least one of his nipples was torn open or off (judging from the heat of healing in that specific area), but who cared? Wasn't a necessary body part. As he stood up, he saw a horrified Middle Eastern woman staring at him through the driver's window of the Road Ranger, her dark eyes as wide as saucers. Although he scowled at her for running him over, he knew it wasn't her fault, and added a grudging, "I'm okay." Only then did he noticed she was staring not only at the growing blood stain on the front of his shirt, but also the tire track.  
  
"You fucking asshole, look what you did to my car!" The cab driver shouted, pointing at the dent he had made when he impacted the vehicle. "What the fuck didja think you were doin', dartin' out on the street like that?!"  
  
Logan just shook his head and started back towards the alley. Who "darted out" back first?  
  
"Hey, fuckface, git your ass back here!" The cabbie shouted, almost drowned out by the chorus of honks as the traffic quickly became blocked up and impassible both ways. The cabbie was quickly engaged in a name calling contest with at least two other men.  
  
Yasha - thank … well, whoever; pick one - was standing outside the alley, leaning against the barred window of the thrift store, hands covering her still vaguely smoking face. Logan glanced into the alley, but he didn't see anything remotely like the shadow man. (Would he? He didn't even smell him before.)  
  
"He's gone," Yasha said, her voice muffled by her hands. "I heard him use a teleportation spell. Oh shit, you're hurt."  
  
She must have smelled his blood. "Just a flesh wound, already healing. How are you?" He raised her head gently towards him, and she moved her hands away so he could look.   
  
The upper left side of her face looked like it had suffered third degree burns; her flesh was a raw and angry red, skin blistered or eaten away, her eyelid swollen over her left eye, which seemed to be the center of the wound. But he could follow the splash pattern of the water across her face, as it left angry marks wherever it touched, including the cornea of her right eye, which had a white scar like a sudden glaucoma. "I'll be all right," she assured him, as he figured she was completely blind. "Holy water doesn't kill or permanently disable, it just stings like a motherfucker. I'll heal. I just need time."  
  
He nodded before he remembered she couldn't see him. "Okay. Do you have any idea what that fucker was? His blood smelled Human."  
  
"I know. My guess is it was some heavy black, blood magic; must have been a sorcerer."  
  
"Did you know he gouged his own eyes out?"  
  
"Did he? Well, that confirms it then."  
  
He slid her arm around his shoulders, and started leading her down the sidewalk, back in the direction of their hotel. She didn't resist at all, simply leaned into him, as if tired. He imagined she was actually in a world of hurt, but wasn't about to admit it. Here they were, the two people who had single (well, double) handedly crushed a burgeoning demon criminal syndicate in Tokyo, and a single freakazoid self-mutilator had, in no time flat, rendered them the walking wounded. How the fuck had that happened? "Why does that confirm it? Do all sorcerers poke their eyes out?"  
  
"No, but he must have made a deal with some demon. The price for power was his eyes."  
  
"Who the fuck would make a stupid deal like that?"  
  
"A man who felt he was getting such a good deal, the power would be better than any eyes could ever be."  
  
And considering how quickly he wiped the floor with them, he bet she was right. But why the fuck had a sorcerer been doing blood rituals in a shitty alley on the Lower East Side? Had they interrupted something, or just made something worse?  
  
Logan wondered if they'd ever know for sure. 


	2. Part 2

3  
  
Bob was fairly sure he'd just dozed off when a shadow occluded the sunlight bleeding in through his eyelids, and Helga slapped him on the thigh with her tail. "You're sulking," she accused.  
  
He squinted up at her, the bright sun giving her an avocado green halo where it shone through her hair. "I'm not - I'm napping." He claimed.  
  
She made a disgusted noise that only women seemed able to make, and shook her head, tail twitching like she was having a muscle spasm. "Would you go and talk to Logan already?" She turned away and walked towards the sliding door, skirting the pool.  
  
Bob was laid out in a lounge chair, soaking up the sun, drinking rum, and listening to Garbage. There didn't seem to be a better way to spend a nice warm Sydney afternoon. On the table beside him, he noticed his highball glass was mostly ice. As he topped it off, he sang under his breath, "Make a whole new religion: a falling star that you cannot live without." Only about an ounce of deep amber liquid trickled out of the thermos, then stopped. Damn it - did he drink the whole thing already?  
  
Hel was waiting by the door, arms folded across her chest, the tip of her tail impatiently tapping the glass. "I've never seen you like this. What the fuck happened?"  
  
"I discovered that I fucked up so bad I'm not sure I can make it right, m'dear. We have any more of the Jamaican stuff?"  
  
"No, but you can conjure some up, can't you?"  
  
"Well, that's cheating," he told her, sipping what was left of his rum. It seemed wrong for a guy who owned a bar to run out of booze.  
  
"What did you fuck up? The verdict's still out on this relationship," she noted darkly.  
  
That made him chuckle. "Give me a chance to make it up to you. I might be able to do that much."  
  
Her look could have cut glass. "This is about Red, isn't it?"  
  
"If by Red you mean Jean, yes."  
  
She threw up her hands in disgust. "What is the big fucking deal? She is a Human with god power - there's only one answer to that, and you know it. Don't just sit on your ass getting a tan, go take her out before she fucks up the multi-verse."  
  
He shook his head, and put his empty glass back down on the side table. Maybe conjuring up one glassful would be acceptable, under the circumstances. "If I do that to Logan -"  
  
"He doesn't hafta know!" She exclaimed impatiently. "I won't tell him!"  
  
He gazed at her sadly, knowing she meant well. "I'm not gonna do that to him. And you know he's not an idiot - if Jean dies, he'll know who's responsible."  
  
"Fine. But don't you trust him to understand why? Even he will get that Humans shouldn't have god powers. It's kinda logical, isn't it?"  
  
"Yes, but -" he sighed and ran his hands through his hair. If he was to be completely honest, he blamed himself for all of this. If only he had mastered time travel, maybe he could jump back and not go to Camaxtli for help in beating Fenrir. But could've, would've, should've. "He won't handle it well."  
  
"No, he won't, but he'll get over it. He's put up with a lot of shitty stuff in his life - what's one more?"  
  
But that was part of the problem, wasn't it? He liked Logan, and he didn't want him to hate him because of this. But there was no way he could avoid it, was there? He couldn't have it both ways. He couldn't do what he had to do, and expect Logan to even speak to him anymore. Especially if he had to use Logan to get close to his target.  
  
Shit. Could things get any worse?  
  
As Hel used her tail to slide open the door, they both heard the phone inside ringing. As she ducked in to get it, he shouted, "If it's for me, tell them I dead. They can call back when I'm resurrected." Okay, it was unlikely anyone he knew would accept that, but some might, so it was worth a shot.   
  
After a moment, the handset of the cordless phone came flying out the door towards him, and would have smacked him square in the balls had he not caught it first. She had incredible aim. "It's Amaranth," Helga told him, leaning out the door. "She knows you're not dead."  
  
Blast.  
  
As he listened to what Ammy had to say, a philosophy occurred to him. In one of Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" books, one of the characters opined that nothing was ever so bad that it couldn't get worse.  
  
Bob hated that his life was living proof of that.  
  
****  
  
Scott had just made it over the New York border when he had to stop for gas.  
  
For some reason, he was itching to just get it over with. The knapsack had bothered him so much he tossed it in the trunk. But why? It was irrational; it was an inanimate object, for Christ's sake. Was he some superstitious moron?   
  
Still, he threw it in the trunk. Insane or not, it gave him a really bad feeling. And it kind of smelled, too.   
  
But maybe it was good he stopped. He was starting to yawn way too much, and could probably use some coffee. It wasn't quite dawn yet, but the sky was starting to lighten, from ebony to a dark, silken blue, and the last radio deejay he heard said it was five in the morning. He didn't understand why he couldn't have slept on it, but it was that nagging feeling again, that stupid, idiot impulse to run that he listened to simply because he had no idea what else to do.  
  
In retrospect, he couldn't believe he acted so illogically. What was wrong with him? He wasn't Logan; he was not a slave to his animal brain. He shouldn't be acting like he was.  
  
The gas pump was digital, but of course the credit card reader was busted, so after getting ten gallons of gas, he had to go inside the station mini-mart to pay. But if he wanted some coffee he'd have had to come in here anyways, so what was the big deal?   
  
Still, he knew there was something wrong when he didn't see anyone behind the register. Scott looked around briefly, then said, "Hello?" There had to be someone here - it was open, wasn't it? The florescent lights buzzed overhead like bees, and cast the cramped little store in flat, glaring light that couldn't be anything but unflattering. Over the audio system, he heard tinny traffic reports concerning some kind of massive jam on the Triborough Bridge (this early in the morning?)  
  
He figured whoever was working this crappy shift was in the back. So he threw a twenty on the counter and went back to the cold case to grab a Starbucks frappachino to drink in the car. But as he rounded the corner, he realized he heard another strange noise: dripping, and the hiss of compressors. Was their freezer section going out? Great, this was his night, wasn't it? And to think it all started because he took out his garbage.  
  
Scott froze, as soon as his mind processed what his eyes were seeing.  
  
Glass from the doors of the cold case glittered in shallow pools of melted ice, the compressors gasping as they worked to cool this entire store. And at the end of the case, sitting against its warped metal frame, was a stocky woman in a brown and white striped mini-mart smock and brown polyester pants, a patch reading "Judy" over her left breast.  
  
Judy had had her eyes gouged out; there was nothing but bloody holes in her face, trails of blood smeared down her face like badly applied make up. Broken glass jutted from her body and face like porcupine spines, stippling her with even more blood. Some shards of it glistened in her peroxide blonde hair like frost.  
  
Scott clapped a hand over his mouth as he rapidly turned away and fought back his rising gorge. Shit, oh shit - what kind of fucking maniac would do something like that?  
  
Scott didn't even want to know - that level of inhumanity was unfathomable. He instantly moved to the counter, aware there had to be a phone there with which he could call 911, but he paused as he successfully swallowed back the bile.   
  
What if she was still alive?  
  
Logically, a person thrown through the glass of a thick freezer door (multiple times? More than one was broken) and divested violently of their eyes wouldn't live very long, but that didn't mean she was dead. People could live through some of the most hideous mutilations and violence imaginable - and not just Logan. Now there was nothing his rudimentary first aid training could do to help her if she was indeed alive, but maybe he could offer her some comfort. And he'd know whether to request just police or an ambulance as well.   
  
He forced himself to turn back and approach the aisle once more, and realized he was so tense he could scream. He'd seen too many horror movies - this was always where the killer suddenly sprang out of nowhere, snarling and wielding a chainsaw. Or maybe it was the fact that the fact that traffic reports had given way to Frankie Goes To Hollywood. That was so wrong on so many levels it was hard to know where to begin.  
  
Water and glass squished and crackled beneath the sole of his sneakers as Judy suddenly and abruptly moved.   
  
He jumped back and gasped, startled and instantly ashamed at his own schoolgirl reaction. It was horrible looking, yes, but she was a victim and she needed help. "Don't move, it's okay," he said, trying to keep any revulsion or pity out of his voice. "I'm gonna call an ambulance right now -"  
  
"It is ours," she growled in a gravelly, almost inhuman voice, climbing up to her feet. And in spite of the fact that she no longer had any eyes, he had the eerie impression that she was staring right at him. "Give it back."  
  
"It's all right," he assured her, thinking 'She's in shock. Who wouldn't be after such a brutal assault?' But what did she mean by "It's ours" ? Why would she start speaking like Gollum? "Just sit back down -"  
  
But she started walking towards him, shoulders hunched and head down in a posture that was nothing but aggressive. Still, how could that be? She couldn't see him, and she had to know he wasn't her attacker.  
  
(She wasn't actively bleeding from any wounds, not even her eye sockets. That wasn't right … )  
  
"Give it to us!" She roared, her voice not only inhuman, but hardly female.   
  
It was then he realized she used to be Human, but she wasn't anymore.  
  
"Judy, can you hear me?" He asked, quickly backing up, trying to confuse the issue and buy himself some time   
  
Didn't zombies walk stiffly in the movies? She didn't. In fact, for a woman with shattered glass jutting out of her body from many different angles, she was moving really well. "You have stolen from us. Trespass will not be tolerated!"  
  
"Stolen what? Who's us?" He asked, glancing behind him before bolting for the door.   
  
But he had just shoved it open when he realized there were more people in the gas station parking lot. Dead people. Without eyes.  
  
Okay, what the hell had happened? Had he fallen asleep at the wheel and woken up in a Stephen King novel?  
  
He took aim at one of the nearest zombies (or whatever), a balding guy in a Mets t-shirt, and fired a hard beam, intending to send him flying. But the narrow beam punched through his midsection, and sent his guts splattering all over the parking lot.  
  
The man remained not just standing but walking towards him, with a nice portal through his stomach. It was like he didn't notice it at all. He'd probably have to blast him to pieces to make him stop. All of them.  
  
Scott just lunged for his car. He threw himself in the driver's seat before they could grab him, although he heard them shouting, "It belongs to us!"  
  
He instantly started the car, almost flooding it in his haste, and sped the hell out of the station, accidentally side swiping a zombie and sending him flying. Considering he was already dead, it was hard to care.  
  
His heart was trip hammering in his chest, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tight he thought he might snap it, and he didn't think he could sleep now if shot up with horse tranquilizers. What the hell was going on? What had happened to all those people, and why? Who could do such a thing?  
  
And why the hell were they after him?  
  
4  
  
When Angel heard the faint strains of "London Calling" coming from Wesley's office, he thought Spike had decided to snoop around in there after Wes had gone home. Who the hell else would be around after two in the morning?  
  
So he was surprised to stick his head in and find Wesley shelving one of his "special" books, his computer leaving a glowing after-imagine reflection in the window behind his desk. "Oh, hello," Wesley said, obviously distracted. He must have been - he didn't even comment on how rude it was of him to come in without knocking. Well, he had been expecting Spike …  
  
"I thought you went home," he admitted, coming in and closing the door.  
  
"I did," Wes confirmed, taking a seat behind his desk and turning his attention back to his computer screen. "But Ghita left a very disturbing e-mail for me, so I had to come back and look into it."  
  
"Ghita?" Was that someone in accounts receivable? You know, he really needed some kind of yearbook with people's photos and names underneath. He had no idea so many people worked for Wolfram and Hart; easily half of Los Angeles.  
  
Wes just nodded absent mindedly. "A friend of mine in Andhra Pradesh. She used to be a Watcher, but since the council is technically no more, she's started up her own independent, worldwide supernatural phenomenon network."  
  
Angel wondered how he was supposed to take that as he leaned on the back of the chair before his desk. "Good for her," he finally said, not sure what else to say. "Is there something going on?"  
  
Wesley barely glanced at him in time to nod. "Something very bad. There seems to be a concentrated chaos wave heading up the East Coast of the United States."  
  
"Chaos wave?"  
  
"It's a concentrated, occult burst of entropy, that causes -"  
  
"Chaos?"  
  
"Exactly. But by virtue of the name, the wave should be spread out, random." Wesley actually bit his lower lip while staring at something on his screen, and Angel knew, whatever it was, it had to be bad. He hadn't seen Wesley so obviously expression an emotion since … well, since they started working here.  
  
"And this isn't?"  
  
"No. It's clearly focused, and seems to be gaining strength as it goes along, which is another basic violation of chaos wave physics. Someone is manipulating it, and it could only be something very powerful."  
  
Angel didn't want to say "And?", but it did occur to him. "Could this be a problem for us?"  
  
Wesley finally did look up at him, to give him a disapproving scowl. His short black hair was mussed, and he had dark circles under his eyes; he was clearly tired. But his blue eyes seemed to blaze, and it was clear his body would have to give out before he actually rested. "This could be a problem for the entire planet."  
  
Okay, now Angel felt like a complete idiot, because he knew there was something he wasn't getting. "Why?"  
  
"There are several reasons. First of all, anything strong enough to control a chaos wave such as this - and feed it - is virtually god-like in power. And depending on whoever is doing it, and for what ultimate purpose, the after-effects of the wave alone could be devastating. Things from other dimensions could come here; Hellmouths could randomly open and close, disgorging who knows what; Humans could be instantly displaced as the Alpha humanoids on the planet; vampires could walk in daylight; the entire dimension could implode; the Earth itself could be destroyed."  
  
Angel stared at him, hoping his exhaustion was making him a drama queen. But no, he knew Wesley wasn't like that. Oh, in the old days, he could be like a hyperventilating Victorian era hypochondriac, but that was the old him; the new one was a grizzled veteran of the demon wars. He might state a worst case scenario, but he would exaggerate things. "If this is so lethal, why haven't I heard of bad guys trying to deploy it before?"  
  
"Because a chaos wave requires a lot of energy to create and sustain, and are impossible to control. "  
  
"Except you think someone finally figured out how to control one."  
  
"Yes. And since it's growing in strength, there's a good possibility that it will eventually subsume the entire planet."  
  
Now that was a quality world domination plan. "Why? To what end?"  
  
Wesley snorted in frustration and shook his head. "We've been trying to figure that out, but until we can find out who's behind this, we have no clue."  
  
"No suspects?"  
  
Wes continued to shake his head. "The chaos wave is heading somewhere. I think, if I can get ahead of it, I can figure out both the intended first target, and those responsible for it."  
  
"But won't you be in it then?"  
  
Wes reached down behind his desk, and pulled out an old fashioned black leather "doctor" bag. Angel knew from the Hyperion days that Wesley carried what could be considered a "last possible mystical resort" kit in there. For some reason, it always smelled of sandalwood and Robitussin. "If I did get caught up in it, at least I'd be prepared to deal with it. The rest of the people in the wake probably aren't."  
  
And that's when it really hit home for Angel. Maybe he was a bit stupefied from being in this damn office all day, but he finally got it: people were already in it. Chaos was occurring in their small portion of the world, be it as simple as the toast always popping up perfectly golden brown, or the family retriever turning into a snarling, twelve limbed Ruugoor beast that already swallowed little Billy whole.   
  
A new Hellmouth may have formed in Madison Square Garden while they were standing here talking. Shit.   
  
"Let's go," he said, wondering if anybody in weapons had something he could use against chaos. "I'm sure there's some spellcasters still around. We could -"  
  
"Going somewhere?" A familiar, unwelcome female voice said behind him.  
  
Angel glanced over his shoulder to see Eve come in. She was a petite little ash blonde lawyer who happened to work as the "mouthpiece" of the Senior Partners, the evil uber-overlords. No one trusted her, and Angel was sure they all had damn good reasons not to.  
  
Wesley had stood up, placing his doctor bag on the desk, and he gave Eve a surprisingly (for him) acrid look. "Do they know about it?" He asked.  
  
She cocked an eyebrow at him, trying on an innocent look that didn't quite fit her face. "Does who know about what?" Her tone of voice was far too light and casual to be believed.  
  
Wesley's glare became molten. "The Senior Partners about the chaos wave. Are they behind it?"  
  
Eve scoffed in disdain. "Like they'd be interested in something so … pedestrian."  
  
"Then they won't mind us going to take a look at it," Angel responded, just waiting for her to contradict him.   
  
She didn't disappoint. "Actually, they would. The boss of a law firm just can't decide to leave on a mission that's certain to be extremely dangerous. They won't allow it."  
  
"Yeah, well, tell them to listen to themselves. I'm boss, and I say what's what. And I'm going."  
  
She gave him a smile that just screamed "Sad, pathetic fool". "No, you're not."  
  
He glowered at her, wondering (not for the first time) if shaking her upside down would dislodge a single iota of truth from her. "Are they gonna stop me?"  
  
"You'll be unable to leave the building. Sorry Angel, but -"  
  
"They have something to gain," Wesley interrupted bitterly. "They're pan-dimensional beings, with footholds in many worlds. Extreme chaos only works in their favor, doesn't it?"  
  
Eve gave him smile number four, which was the "Like I'm telling you a damn thing, idiot" smile. "That's hardly the way to talk about your bosses, Wesley. If they think things will work out for the best, I'm inclined to believe them."  
  
"This is such bullshit," Angel growled, wondering how they'd stop him if he just jumped out the fucking window.   
  
It was then he felt a shiver of extremely powerful magic, the kind that made the demon in him instinctively cringe, and he wondered if the Senior Partners were finally going to show what they were made of.   
  
But they all looked to see the strangest sight standing on the left side of Wesley's office.  
  
It was another petite woman, but this one had almost violently blue hair, cut in a sleek, short style, just highlighting the delicate bones of her face. Her lips were blue, but not quite as blue as her eyes, which seemed like a hyper-real cobalt. She wore a black t-shirt with a picture of the gold robot puppet from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the words "Bite me!" emblazoned on it, blue leather pants that seemed to match her hair, and a leather wrist cuff covered with spikes. She smelled Human, Belial, and … other. She also, inexplicably, smelled familiar, even though Angel knew he hadn't seen this startling young woman before.   
  
It was Eve who looked more perturbed than anyone else. "How the hell did you get in here?"  
  
"'Cause my granddad can kick the asses of your bosses," she replied, betraying a really thick Australian accent. "And if they interfere with me, he'll come do just that. Now be gone, slag." And with a dismissive wave of her hand, Eve winked out of existence.  
  
"Where did you send her?" Wesley asked, more curious than annoyed.  
  
"Basement. She'll probably call security when she gets out, so let's make this fast, okay?"  
  
Australian accent; cobalt eyes. Angel suddenly had a bad feeling about this. "Who's your granddad?" He was only asking for confirmation.  
  
"Bob. And you're Angel and the pommie, right?"  
  
"I don't appreciate being called a pommie," Wes replied crisply. Angel didn't completely understand the derivation of the term, but it was an Australian slur for the British.  
  
Bob's grand-daughter (? Great grand-daughter? With him, it was possible to add another couple of greats) simply shrugged, like it was no big deal to her. "Ya guys know what's goin' on?"  
  
"The chaos wave?" Angel guessed. Oh shit, was Bob somehow involved in this?  
  
She nodded. "Too right. Bob's getting together an Earth bound unit to help him with the thing, and for some reason he thinks you rag bags might want in. Do ya?"  
  
"We are not rag bags," Wesley exclaimed angrily. Bob's progeny was not endearing herself to him. (What a shock.)  
  
"You guys in or out?" She repeated impatiently.  
  
Angel wondered briefly if they trust the witch (she was a witch, wasn't she? She smelled vaguely of wormwood), or Bob, but he knew the answer. No, they shouldn't trust them, but if anyone had the power to stop this, it would lay in the Bob camp. Trust would simply have to remain secondary. "We're in." Angel then paused, and asked, "Did we really have a choice?"  
  
"No," she admitted. Well, at least she was honest.  
  
"Who are you exactly?" Wes asked.  
  
She looked at him like he smelled bad. "I'm Amaranth. Now hold on to your goodies, guys, 'cause here we go."  
  
And with that, Amaranth transported them abruptly to god knew where. 


	3. Part 3

5  
  
Once they got back to the hotel, he suggested trying to rinse off some of the holy water, but she assured him it was already gone. It looked like her skin was a little less blistered as well.   
  
She just wanted to lay down, so he did so with her, hoping she couldn't smell the worry he was surely exuding.  
  
What the fuck had that eyeless dude been about? Okay, sorcerer, fine, but why there? What had he been hoping to accomplish?  
  
After a while of stroking her hair and staring up at the ceiling, he had a sudden epiphany. "Why don't you take some of my blood? I mean, you'll heal faster, right?"  
  
But she took a while to respond, so he glanced down, and figured out she was asleep. She had the most injured side of her face pressed against his chest, and she had her arm casually flung across his abdomen, one leg draped over his. It was really hard to tell when she was asleep; since she didn't breathe or have a heartbeat, she could very well be faking it to avoid the issue. Yet he didn't think so this time.   
  
He was afraid to sleep, at least while she was actually on top of him; he could really hurt her if he had a nightmare and freaked out (which was par for the course with him). But of course, just because he so badly didn't want to go to sleep, he suddenly felt very weary. It was always that way, wasn't it?   
  
At some point, in spite of his best efforts, he did fall asleep. But he didn't dream, at least not that he remembered, and that was all he cared about.   
  
Something woke him up, though, and at first he wasn't sure what. It was just an odd feeling they weren't alone, and maybe … a familiar smell..?  
  
"Sorry to wake you big guy, 'specially when you got company," Bob said, making him jolt.  
  
Bob was leaning against the door, arms folded over his chest. In the dark hotel room, Logan could still pick up on significant details: he was wearing leather pants again, probably boots too; he'd been out in sunlight recently (he still smelled of it); also, he'd been drinking high quality rum. "Bob, shit," he cursed, wanting to sit all the way up, but Yasha was still laying on him, and he didn't want to wake her up. "Where the fuck have you been?"  
  
"Out of town on business. You're aware your gal pal's undead, ain't you?"  
  
He scowled at him. "No shit." And since she hadn't moved, he asked, "Did you do something to her?"  
  
He shrugged, and uncoiled his arms. "Just told her she wouldn't notice us. She kinda looks familiar … is she famous?"  
  
"Yeah, she's Angelina Jolie."  
  
"No she's not. Her boobs would've pushed you off the bed if she was, and her lips would be really big, like she'd been sucking on a tailpipe."  
  
Logan shook his head and grimaced, trying not to laugh. If he had any suspicions this wasn't Bob, he knew he was now. "She's called Lady Blood, okay?"  
  
"Oh wow, really? That's her? Man …you wearing a cup?"  
  
Logan gave him a hateful stare, knowing Bob could damn well see him. "She's not like that anymore."  
  
"One would hope not. Rumors had it she got cursed or something and dropped out, only surfacing to kick some ass and make sure no one had forgotten her. Any truth in it?"  
  
"Some. Do you have any fucking idea about all the hell you've missed?"  
  
"No. Why don't ya fill me in?"  
  
So he did, starting with all the Jean nonsense, and then Leonie, and how it all culminated in Leonie getting killed and Jean killing everybody in the Organization base in Mexico. Bob probably could have "seen" it in his mind, and did, but let him rant as catharsis. Bob's postured notably stiffened, and he could almost smell the indigence. "I'm glad she killed those motherfuckers," he growled. "I'm sorry about Leonie, Logan, but I ain't gonna tell you that, 'cause I know words are worse than useless now."  
  
Putting kids in danger or hurting them really pushed Bob's buttons, didn't it? He could understand, but he felt there was more there, a subtext that was part of the answer to Bob. "You've lost a kid, haven't you?" He guessed.  
  
"More than one," he admitted, looking away at nothing, jaw tensing. "That's the worst part of virtual immortality, the loss of so much that means anything to you." All of Bob's studied casualness dropped away, replaced by something darker and harder. " If you have any feelings at all, you never get used to it. I'm never gonna tell you seriously I envy you your memory loss - I don't - but some things are better off forgotten."  
  
Logan felt a small surge of rage for even passing close to declaring his enforced memory loss a "blessing", but then he got inexplicable insight: one of his kids had been murdered. Because of what Bob was? Perhaps. Why did he think he knew that, though? You couldn't glean that much information from the tensing of someone's posture, the rigidity of their body language, the sudden merciless tone in their voice. He couldn't know that, and yet … it felt right. Maybe he picked it up unconsciously at some point; gods knew he'd been in his mind enough times.   
  
But he knew it was worse for Bob than him. If he was completely honest with himself, he was devastated by the loss of Leonie only because of what she represented, not because of who she was, and that was so cold he didn't wish to think about it too hard. Bob loved his kids. That was why he shifted abruptly from good natured good guy (even when nailed to a wall) to cold, wrathful god when his family was brought into it; he had lost one child (more?) due to who (what) he was - it was never happening again.  
  
"I'm not virtually immortal," Logan pointed out, belatedly realizing Bob had included him in that statement.  
  
"No, of course not," Bob agreed, far too quickly and dismissively. Bastard.  
  
"So what the fuck was up with that eyeless guy?"  
  
Bob looked back at him, and maybe it was just a dim shaft of slowly burgeoning sunlight bleeding through the join in the curtains, but he would have sworn his eyes glowed a brief, deep blue. "Oh shit. The Brothers."  
  
"You know 'em?"  
  
"Of them - the Brotherhood of the Panoptes."  
  
Logan snorted, not all that surprised. "The All Seeing? Considering they take their eyes out with melon ballers, is that appropriate?"  
  
"Good on ya, ya speak Greek. As you know, though, the Brothers don't need their eyes to see."  
  
Was that Greek? Oh, yeah, he guessed so. "Yeah. What's that about? Yasha thought it was a sorcerer."  
  
"Yasha? Oh, is that Madame Sanguine's stage name? You do know a yasha is another kinda demon, right?"  
  
"Yeah, I know. Move on."  
  
"Right. Anyhoo, the Brothers have a specific hierarchy, and they all answer to a hierophant."  
  
Logan instantly interpreted that too - but it was another Greek word, wasn't it? Shit. "High priest?"  
  
"Yep. Their big hoo-haa Pope Evilus channels quite a bit of black magic; supposedly he is their Chosen, with a direct link to the Pater Sinister himself, Argus."  
  
'Bright', Logan thought, his stupid mind translating the word unbidden again. Given a century, he didn't think he'd ever understand his stupid, broken little mind. (That's why the Organization noticed him, right? His facility with language … ) "Who's Argus? Some bad ass god?"  
  
Bob tapped the end of his nose, like they were playing charades. "Yeah, but there's kind of a funny story there."  
  
Logan rolled his eyes and groaned. "Funny like Kumiho?"  
  
"In a way. Argus was initially an Earth god, in the most literal sense of the word. He was born of/twinned off of - gotta love god reproduction - of Gaia."  
  
"You mean another god, right? Not the Earth itself."  
  
Bob paused for a moment, cocking his head to the side, and Logan's bad feeling increased tenfold. "Well … not exactly …"  
  
"Okay, look, I don't need those details. Are we completely fucking doomed?"  
  
"Not completely, no."  
  
"What is Argus's power exactly?"  
  
"Er, uh, I'm not sure you want to know that one."  
  
Oh no. "It's that bad?"  
  
"He can control most things within the Earth realm, namely the things living on it."  
  
It took him a moment, but he got it. "People. He controls people?"  
  
"Well, yeah; to be technical, flesh. Living or dead."  
  
"Shit." But that explained why eyes would be useless to his followers. They could die from the wounds, and it wouldn't matter. He would keep them going; his "love" would keep them alive. Or at the very least, animate. "So why isn't he grabbin' all of us?"  
  
"See, now here comes the funny part," Bob said, coming closer to the bed. He was close enough now that Logan could make out what was on the front of his white t-shirt: it was an illustration of the Comic Book Guy from The Simpson, looking extremely dumpy and pathetic in a mask, cape, and spandex uniform, surrounded by the legend 'Worst Superhero Ever'. Bob certainly enjoyed his little "in-jokes", didn't he? "Argus was banished from the Earth realm a long time ago. See, he was … well, let's say he was convincing people to worship him by the ton, and the other gods despised his manipulation of the playing field. Also, he started embarrassing his mother, and she wasn't gonna stand for that. So he was ripped from Earth, and tucked away in a universe where he could run things all by his lonesome and never bug us again. But unlike Fenrir, Argus was happy with this; he got tired of his mother showin' him up all the time anyways. He couldn't play Christ here, but there - hey, who gave a fuck?"  
  
"So he changed his mind. He's back and he's pissed."  
  
Bob shook his head. "It's not him."  
  
"But you just said-"  
  
"It's his followers at work, sure, but it's not him feeding them. Something is mimicking his energy, but it's not him. They're using the Brothers to raise the dead and do their dirty work for them."  
  
"Raise the dead?" Logan repeated. First he heard of that. "Not zombies again."  
  
Bob shook his head tersely. "As far as I can tell, they're only using them for specific grunt work. Besides, they can't use any old dead - they have to be killed in a special, consecrated way to be available for use by the hierophant."  
  
Logan took a stab in the dark. "Eyes ripped out?"  
  
"Ooh, you're good at this. We should really go on a game show together. We'd clean up."  
  
"Why not tell these Brothers they're being used by the wrong god? Don't you think they'd be pissed?"  
  
"First of all: why would they believe me, an infidel? Number two: you saw the power the Major Domo is getting out of this. Do you think he wants to give this up? He's already shrimp forked his own eyes into non-existence. What does he get out of giving up the power fix? Thirdly: do you think the real god behind this is gonna let me?"  
  
Logan scowled, not wanting to admit he may have had a point. "How do you know it's not Argus?"  
  
"I dropped by his place."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I paid a visit to his dimension before comin' here. My god, bein' constantly worshipped is horrible for the waistline; I couldn't believe how fat he was. I suggest he lay off the extra sacrificial goat, but I doubt he was listening to me -"  
  
Logan never wanted to know about the habits of the gods; any gods. He didn't care who, why, or when. "Of course he was gonna deny doin' it if you confronted him."  
  
"But it wouldn't have helped him. He's a strong guy, but I'm stronger. And right now, he's the god equivalent of Marlon Brando. He wouldn't even get his fat ass off the couch. His Earth is much better than this one could ever be, at least according to him. He is worshipped as the one true savior, and has been allowed to grow to the size of a small mountain. Why would he want to leave? When I told him I thought someone was exploiting his old followers in his name, do you think he cared? He hasn't had genuine contact with them in centuries; he couldn't give a shit if someone exploited their naiveté."  
  
"Why do I have a feeling this is making me very jaded about religion?"  
  
Bob scoffed. "Like you weren't already."  
  
Okay, that was a point for him. "So you've got no idea who could be doing this?"  
  
"Not as such. But it's obviously tied in with the chaos wave."  
  
Logan sighed heavily, and asked rhetorically, "Is there no end to this shit?"  
  
"Everything has to end," Bob offered, and Logan wondered if that was actually supposed to be comforting. Bob held out his hand, and said, "Want the quick feed?"  
  
"Yeah." Logan reached out and grabbed his hand, and got that straight shot lightning bolt of information straight into his brain pan. You would have thought, by now, Bob would find a way to make that easier.   
  
After a moment, he had assimilated the whole thing, and realized they were in even deeper shit than he ever imagined. "How do we shut down a chaos wave?" He asked, as Bob hadn't sent him that information (or if he had, he hadn't sussed it yet). His head ached a bit, but it was starting to fade. Not so much telepathy as a big psychic punch.  
  
"See, the thing is, this isn't your average chaos wave."  
  
"Of course it isn't." That would have been too easy. Right?  
  
"Whoever is behind this, they're feeding the chaos, and it is obviously feeding them. The Brothers are surely helping, but can't possibly be doing this alone. This is huge; by nature, this has to be a massive effort. Even I might not be able to turn this back. But, rather than shut it down, there might be a way to work it in our favor."  
  
"How's that?"  
  
"Well, I ain't telling' ya now, as I have no wish to repeat myself. But let's say I have a cunning plan. Oh, and a few friends in high places." He looked past Logan, at the still sleeping Yasha. "Think Senora Sangre would be interested in a dust up? So to speak."  
  
"Can she kill things?"  
  
"Probably."  
  
"Then yeah, I'd say she's up for it."  
  
He clapped his hands together and rubbed them eagerly. "Beautiful. The undead are always helpful in these kind of things."  
  
"How many other people are you dragging into this?" He wondered, as he got the distinct impression that Bob was getting himself quite a group together.  
  
"Oh, just the usual suspects," he said, curiously evasive. "And a few friends. No one you don't know."  
  
Was that supposed to be comforting too? Honestly, Logan's bad feeling about this just increased. But maybe that was simple proximity to Bob.  
  
Bob suddenly got a very curious look on his face, staring at something only he could see, and said, "Jean manifested on this plane? I wonder …"  
  
"Wonder what?"  
  
He didn't answer right away, and in fact chose to shake his head. "Nothin'. Just quite a coincidence, in'nt?"  
  
He hadn't thought of it that way before. And now he didn't want to think about it ever again.  
  
6  
  
Scott wondered when he had become this big a moron. What did they want? Well, it was obvious, wasn't it? That thing; that thing in his trunk. So it was some occult dealy - he actually thought it might be something like that.  
  
He was still driving way too fast, and taking an evasive route, which belatedly struck him as funny. Did he think zombies could drive, especially ones without eyes? Sure - ultra smart zombies with computerized eye implants. He laughed at the thought, but in a nervous way.  
  
He hated this occult crap; he hated this demon crap. Why couldn't have Bob (and by extension Logan) kept this to himself ? (So, maybe the Professor had encountered some long before - at least he had the decency to keep it to himself.)  
  
As he drove back to Westchester, he was peripherally aware that the weather seemed to be changing with a bizarre rapidity, like Storm was having a county wide nervous breakdown. It was clear, and sweltering one minute, and hardly five miles down the road it was gray and impossibly windy, like a hurricane had come off the coast and strayed deep inland. Another ten miles up, and it was snowing.   
  
This weirdness wasn't just confined to the atmosphere, either. The statue of some general he'd never heard of had apparently disappeared inside a sudden sinkhole that healed itself up by the time the fire department checked it out; FAO Swartz's was evacuated when it started raining tadpoles inside the store; someone had stacked cars one on top of another in a county-city building parking lot, making a car pile the equivalent size of a three story building; LaGuardia shut down when it was discovered the tires of a 747 had been inexplicably encased in cement; the New York City public library was closed when books started moving "of their own volition" (it was being alternately blamed on pranksters or a gas leak); a subway train narrowly avoided hitting an elephant (!) that abruptly appeared on the tracks just beyond the 56th street station; the Triborough bridge traffic was all fouled up by the still unexplained appearance of a decommissioned Bradley armored tank in the center of it, blocking three lanes. No reports of eyeless people, but he had a sinking feeling it was a matter of time.  
  
Scott found himself trying to rationalize it all. Magneto could have put that tank there (it was metal, right?) and stacked those cars. Other mutants could probably control the elements, hence the chaotic weather, and the disappearing statue (perhaps even the rain of tadpoles). But the airplane? He was still puzzling that one out. And he couldn't even begin to guess about the books or the elephant.   
  
The eyeless people? Well, no mutant he knew of could make the dead walk. He really didn't believe that was even a power option. What the hell was the evolutionary advantage of making the dead move?  
  
He figured out only one thing, and it seemed screamingly obvious - something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. But what, and where, and how the hell did they fix it? Was there any fixing it?  
  
And what did it have to do with the thing in his truck?  
  
The sun was sometime rising, had risen, or had set again, depending on where he was. Or maybe it wasn't where he was, simply the passage of time. Either way, he was starting to feel chronologically unstuck, just adding to the surrealism of it all.  
  
Even though his radio was technically tuned to the same channel, the broadcasts he received were constantly leaping all over the dial, and he had given up trying to follow one. He sometimes heard news; he sometimes heard music (rap, salsa, bland contemporary pop, opera, country, and - he would swear - polka); he sometimes heard odd things, like someone reading Dylan Thomas in a somewhat embarrassing Welsh accent, rapid fire discussion in a foreign tongue he couldn't even begin to guess at (Yemeni? Czechoslovakian? Esperanto?), a college radio station with West Coast call letters (!), a bad sitcom complete with overbearing laugh track, and what sounded an awful lot like German air traffic control tapes. Eventually the white noise fuzz of static started to become dominant, washing it all away.  
  
He decided to turn it off - as grateful as he was for the noise and the false feeling of company, he knew that it was ultimately making things worse - but as he reached for the controls music flared, loud and somewhat hard rock oriented, not his kind at all. Static jittered in and out, sounding like it was making a radio edit. "They are not gone they are not gone, they are only sleeping," the singer sang, in a kind of whispery menace. Scott had the impression he was British. "In graves, in ways, in clay; underneath the floor -"  
  
Scott snapped the radio off, and wondered, for the first time, if someone was toying specifically with him.  
  
***  
  
As bad as it was teleporting across the country with a surly Aussie witch (and relative of Bob's, which was perhaps the worst sin of all), it was doubly embarrassing that she had to materialize them in a garden shed, as they would be going into someone's home, and Angel couldn't enter until he was invited.  
  
The sun was rising - he could smell it in spite of all the fertilizer, and feel it like a itch on his skin - so after dumping him there, Amaranth took herself and Wesley out of there, probably to the main house. At least it was a large shed, he supposed.  
  
Angel opened the door slightly, peeking out cautiously, but he wasn't sure why; the sun had not technically breached the horizon yet, and he doubted there was anyone about playing croquet at five in the morning (or was it closer to six? The problem with long distance teleport, beyond the odd jet lag, was the uneven loss of time).  
  
He didn't know what he expected, but it wasn't this. He was looking out over a wide lawn and an extremely well tended garden, all leading up to a mansion with brickwork and some pleasant gothic touches that made it look quaint as opposed to menacing. Did Bob have an East Coast home? Would he be surprised if he did?  
  
No, wait - it couldn't be Bob's house. If it was, he should have been able to enter without a problem, as he wasn't Human. Even if he had a half-Human child living here, it wouldn't necessarily be enough. A Human lover or wife? Sure, that would keep him out, as long as she lived here. Or Bob could have put an enchantment on the place, forbidding entry of vampires, but Bob didn't seem like the type to do that; he seemed to have some vampire friends, which Angel didn't get at all. They were all evil. Okay, mostly evil. Not him … and supposedly not Yasha. But he was still convinced Spike was evil, and no one was ever going to tell him otherwise.  
  
Angel watched as a ray of pale light slowly brightened on the swath of verdant grass, then, slowly, inexplicably, seemed to cloud, like cream being poured into coffee.   
  
The chaos wave. Wherever the sun was coming up, it had touched down there ; it would only be a matter of time before it engulfed this area too, drowning them in dark energy seemingly without focus, but full of bad intent.  
  
Once they had materialized in here, and Wesley finished picking up the shovels and rakes they had inadvertently knocked down, he asked Amaranth how Bob knew of the chaos wave in the first place. "I bleedin' told him, didn't I?" Amaranth snapped, taking them both in with a look that could have neutered lesser men. "I'm a witch, ain't I? I know when things go wrong with the Earth's energy, you fuckin' drongoes."  
  
Why did all of Bob's relatives that they had the misfortune to meet treat them like dog shit they just stepped in? Was it an odor, a personality type, or a general world philosophy? Maybe Bob tried to make up for their sour dispositions by appearing to be ultra friendly. Or maybe being related to Bob was enough to make the kindest soul jaded beyond belief.  
  
Angel knew it might take a bit, especially if someone had to be woken up, so he decided to have a look around the shed, and try and determine the type of people he'd be dealing with here. How he thought he could do that from gardening implements he had no idea.  
  
But he was able to figure out a few things. They obviously had money (well, duh), as they had some of the most up to date gardening equipment he had ever seen (he didn't recognize about half of it); they didn't believe in using artificial pesticides (good for them); and somehow, someone had written on the ceiling "Paulo is a dickhead". Why some kid (and it must have been a kid) had bothered to set up a ladder and write on the ceiling of a garden shed he had no idea. It seemed like a lot of trouble for no pay off.  
  
Finally he heard a noise outside the shed, and the door swung open, revealing Amaranth standing behind a bald man in a wheelchair. "This is him," she said, gesturing at Angel, who suddenly felt self-conscious. Did she have to save it with such disdain?  
  
The man's pale eyes widened appreciably, creases forming on his wide brow. He wore a gray suit that seemed oddly elegant -especially for this time of day - and in spite being in a wheelchair, he gave off an almost disconcerting aura of power. "You're Angel?"  
  
Now he really felt self-conscious. Why did he sound shocked? "Uh, yeah." He wiped his hands on his duster, even though his hands weren't damp, and extended one towards the man as he approached, then stopped as he seemed ever so slightly taken aback. Angel decided to simply hide his hands in his pockets. "Do you know me?"  
  
"Only in a roundabout way ; you were the friend in L.A. he would never talk about." He grimaced wryly. "At least now I know why. With a name like Angel, you're definitely not what I was expecting."  
  
"He?"  
  
"Logan."  
  
It was Angel's turn to be surprised. "Logan? You know him?" It was then that it sunk in: this mansion on the East Coast - this was New York, wasn't it? - this wealth, this oddly powerful, upper crust man in a wheelchair who knew Logan and something about a 'friend" called Angel …"You're Charles Xavier, aren't you?" He guessed, hoping he was wrong.  
  
The man nodded, giving him a tight smile.  
  
Oh shit. 


	4. Part 4

"Am I not what you expected?' Xavier asked, sounding slightly amused.  
  
"Uh, no, it's just that I didn't realize that Amaranth was taking us here." He shot her a dirty look that only seemed to make her smile.  
  
(Oh god, he hoped Xavier wasn't a relative of Elizabeth Xavier! Shit!)  
  
"According to Wesley, you're not a typical vampire, which is good. I still have some great reservations about Yasha, but from what I've seen of you in Wesley's mind, you seem genuine."  
  
"Yasha's here?" He knew she had left abruptly, seemingly to see Logan, but she was hardly the most forthcoming person in the world. In fact, that made her the perfect match for the equally taciturn Logan.  
  
"Not at the moment." Just from the way he said it, he knew Xavier would prefer it if she never came back. Well, he couldn't blame him; you never knew what duplicity a vampire was capable of until they had an all access pass to your house. And Xavier, as a telepath, may have felt an instinctive mistrust of a being whose mind he couldn't read; it might have been like being robbed of a crucial sense.  
  
"There's a spell that can revoke all previous vampire invitations into a house," he told him, in case he had reservations about inviting him in as well. "Wes could probably do it for you once we're done here."  
  
"And what - I couldn't?" Amaranth said sharply.   
  
Angel sighed heavily. There was no way to win, with her, was there? "Yes, her too."  
  
"Yes, I think that might be a good idea," Xavier agreed.  
  
"Did Bob tell you what was going on?" He asked. He could ask Amaranth, but you know what? No fucking way. Better to be in the dark.  
  
Thin lines appeared in the corner of Xavier's eyes as he scowled faintly. "Not exactly. Something about a chaos wave, which the few news reports I have been able to pick up have confirmed. Well, not in so many words, but chaos is as good a word for it as anything else."  
  
"The media's not covering it?" Although that was hard to believe, in one sense it wasn't. Humans had an amazing capacity to ignore what they didn't wish to understand. Why else did most people believe vampires were a myth?  
  
"No, they were, but it seems none of the broadcast services are on the air anymore. Before they went off the air, things were … falling apart with distressing rapidity."  
  
It was like a tidal wave, and they were just ahead of the curve. Bob was a surfer, right? He probably liked the dizzying rush of catching a wave large enough and powerful enough to crush not only him, but everything in its path. He hoped Bob didn't get too carried away with his love of last minute dramatic saves.  
  
"Come inside, before the sun comes up completely," Xavier said, and Amaranth stepped aside so he could wheel himself back. "I'll introduce you to the others."  
  
"Others?" He replied, feeling that sudden awkwardness again. This was a mutant school, right? He hadn't really met many mutants.  
  
He wondered what they'd think of him.  
  
7  
  
He was having the best dream ever. Oh sure, it got a zero for sheer predictability, but it was still all good. Creativity wasn't necessarily everything.  
  
Girls in skimpy animal print bikinis fanned him and shaded him with their massive breasts as he laid on a sunny golden beach, drinking a really cold - and good - Long Island ice tea and fed him frozen bits of turkey jerky. It was truly paradise.  
  
One of them started to run her hand back and forth in his hair, and it felt better than he would've imagined, despite the fact that whoever she was, she had very cold hands …  
  
Rags jolted awake, sitting up before he even opened his eyes, body ready to go into fight or flight - okay, just flight - mode. But even as his heart beat a frantic tattoo in his chest, everything around him looked normal. And smelled vaguely of tacos.  
  
He didn't live in a standard apartment, not by L.A. standards. He lived in a one and half room (half being the bathroom) squat of a former fly-by-night (literally) travel office that was right over a Jocko's Taco. There was also a "massage therapist" around the back, and a small yoga studio a teeny parking lot behind them. The massage therapist was too freaked out by him to take his money, which was a real bummer. If anyone asked, he was running an internet start up, and that appeased them more often than not. If they asked what he was selling, he'd tell them his own garden statuary, and offer to bring over one of his lawn gnomes for them to see. That usually shut everyone up - no one wanted to see your lawn gnome, especially if you were going to try and pawn it off on them.  
  
Being a High Priest in what was considered a "fringe religion" didn't pay a hell of a lot. Obviously you had to impose your beliefs on people and potentially abuse your followers to be considered a major player, and how bloody depressing was that? Medusa wasn't like that. She was benevolent; she and her sisters had been tragic victims of Humans rewriting history, and then drowning it in myth. Wrong wrong wrong.  
  
His room was really pathetic. He had a mattress on the floor, the blankets currently kicked aside into a massive ball, and the portable television on the floor, against the parallel wall, flickering images of Humans acting out various absurd things. His mouth tasted like a day old gym sock, and he was starting to get a familiar dull pounding behind his eyes. Another hangover; another night of too many Long Island iced teas. He was depressed and he knew it, but he didn't really know what to do about it. It wasn't like there was a therapist out there who saw Persaid demons.  
  
He just vaguely remembered stumbling home last night, after Lia kicked him out. Now why did she kick him out this time? Oh shit, was Thrakazogg involved?  
  
Oh bloody fucking hell. Thrakazogg and a karaoke machine. How drunk was he? It was well known that Thrakky was banned from all karaoke bars in the entire L.A. basin because of his singing - he'd hospitalized twenty six people with his painful caterwauling, and possibly killed three. He didn't have complete memories, just flashes of images: something about Aretha Franklin's "Respect" and Rags being a back up singer. Thank the Gorgons Lia chucked them out on their asses before Thrak could hurt anyone with his high notes. He was really gonna have to grovel with Lia this time. He'd be lucky to be let in to The Way Station before Solstice.  
  
Briefly he wondered if the sound was out on his set, then remembered he had a wank to one of those soft core movies they always showed on Cinemax at one in the morning before he went to sleep. He had to turn the sound off, as there was no way he could have a decent wank if he heard those people speak. The fact that they actually tried to have plots was sad enough on its own; but the dialogue was so impossibly, ridiculously bad he always busted up laughing if he heard some. And because they weren't hard core porn, they had more of it - more talking, more pretending the whole point of this wasn't just watching good looking people shag like mad for eighty of the picture's ninety minutes. Then he'd start pitying the actors whose job prospects were so bad they actually jumped at making that chunk of nudie cheese, and nothing made the old tadger call it a night quite like pity. As it was nowadays, he could only watch them drunk, when his attention span and ability to comprehend things was extremely limited. He'd only tried to look at hard core stuff once, and almost instantly gave up - it was disgusting. Sometimes Human bodies could be so bleeding disgusting. At least the soft cores never showed you too much.   
  
The blinds covering the front window were slightly open, so he could see it was still dark out (save for the bright lights in the Jocko's lot), so he must not have gotten a lot of sleep. So what woke him up? Did the manager slam the door too hard when he showed up for work downstairs?  
  
Then it slowly dawned on Rags's hangover addled brain that someone was still running their hand through his hair.  
  
He looked slowly over his shoulder, and for a single moment he was relieved it was indeed a woman. Then recognition clicked, and he screamed and lurched back, throwing himself off the bed and began pulling himself rapidly away by his hands, butt sliding on the floor.  
  
"Hello-"  
  
"-Rags," the Weird Sisters said. One was sitting down on either side of his mattress. They were fully dressed, so that was a plus. Well, if you considered outfits consisting of gold and black metallic mesh tops, purple paisley print pants, and heavy brown waffle stomper boots better than nudity; only on an obese and extremely hairy man would nudity be the worse of the two evils.   
  
"Augh wha," he said, and even he didn't know what he meant. Well, it wasn't his fault, was it? Yes, maybe his blood was too acidic to ever be palatable to a vampire, but the Sisters still freaked him out. At least they were equal opportunity freakers; they freaked everyone out, including other vampires. They just weren't right (and he wasn't only talking about their dubious fashion sense).  
  
"Things-"  
  
"-are-"  
  
"-happening. Bad-"  
  
"-things."  
  
Rags had come up against the wall, so he could retreat no further. The blue light of the television reflected in their odd eyes like strobes, and there never was a way to read those bloody empty smiles of theirs. "Wh-what?" He finally asked, forming a coherent word. Good for him. "Where? I didn't do anyfing." His heart was pounding way too fast, and bile burned at the base of his throat. No one with a hangover should be scared.  
  
"We-"  
  
"-know-"  
  
"-you didn't."  
  
"If you-"  
  
"-did, you'd be-"  
  
"-dead."  
  
Was that supposed to be reassuring? "I think I'm going to be sick," he admitted, although he was too weak to get up off the floor. They may not have drank his blood, but he felt robbed of whatever strength he had. Maybe that was the worst part of the Sisters: just the idea of them could make you shit yourself.  
  
"Whatever."  
  
"Once-"  
  
"-you're done-"  
  
"-clean up-"  
  
"-fast. It's time-"  
  
"-for the Church-"  
  
"-of the Stone Temple-"  
  
"-to save the world."  
  
It took him a moment to absorb what they were saying - at the best of times he found their ceaseless back and forth hard to follow, but with a raging hangover forget it - but when it finally did sink in, he couldn't believe it. "What?"  
  
Did they just say what he thought they said?  
  
8  
  
Angel wasn't sure if the meeting was more awkward for him, or for the other mutants who started trickling in afterwards. Angel got a sense that there was a lot of subtext he was missing here.   
  
Storm (had to love these code names) treated him somewhat coolly, but civilly, considering; she didn't like vampires either. Well, hell, who did? He couldn't precisely blame anyone for not liking the species - he didn't either. It was just an awful twist of fate he was one to begin with.  
  
One of the kids at the school was half Brachen, a kid named Brendan who insisted on being "in on this - I help, right?" Reminded him a little of Doyle - okay, a really young, sober, red eyed Doyle - and for that reason alone he instantly liked him. The kid eyed him warily, and asked, "Demon?"  
  
Angel just nodded. "Vampire."  
  
"Good one?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Okay."  
  
And that was the entirety of their exchange so far. Another reason to like him.  
  
A girl called Rogue, with a white streak in her hair, kept staring at him, but whenever he glanced in her direction she looked away. He was having a hard time interpreting that look - hate or attraction? All he knew was when her lanky boyfriend (?) caught it, he gave Angel a really hateful glare. Maybe she just liked the coat. It was a really killer coat - good quality leather and everything. Nothing but the best when you were working for evil overlords.  
  
Wesley had no problem circulating, but then again he wouldn't. He seemed to get on really well with the kids as well as the adults, but he used to be a Watcher: he had trained most of his life to train Slayers to go into battles that would surely be the death of them at one time or another. He hadn't been very good at that when he was a Watcher, but now that he was out and his position was somewhat obsolete, he showed he had a knack for at least certain aspects of it. That was called irony.  
  
Angel heard voices in the hall, recognized Storm being angry at something (or someone), and the familiar figure of Marcus came into the front lobby, trailed by an extremely lank and big eyed mutant he had never seen before. "Oh wow, Angel," Marc exclaimed, so far the only person who sounded happy to see him. "They drag you into this too?"  
  
"In a manner of speaking. How did you know?"  
  
"Bob called me, said something about the world ending. Is it?"  
  
That was a poser. "It's ... a possibility."  
  
Marc gestured to the tall, big eyed man behind him, and said, "Angel, this is Clive, called Spider. Spider, this is Angel. He's a vampire, but he's inexplicably on our side."  
  
Spider held out an extremely long, pale hand, and Angel shook it warily. He was expecting to get stabbed by cilia, but no, that didn't happen. Why did they call him Spider? His tarantula eyes? "Nice to meet you."  
  
"Ta mate, you too. Cold hand."  
  
"He's dead," Marc said casually, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of the back pocket of his jeans. "All vamps are technically dead."  
  
Storm stuck her head inside the door, and snapped, "Smoke in here and I will make it rain on you."  
  
He put the pack away with a sigh, as Spider got over his brief shock, and told Angel, "Oh. Sorry about that."  
  
Angel could just shrug. "Not your fault."  
  
Marc threw himself on the one empty sofa, and sighed like a martyr. Storm had gone, but not before shooting Marc a look that just may have blistered the paint. "She doesn't like you?" Not really a question, he was just curious about the animosity. He wasn't a vampire.  
  
Marc shrugged. "She thinks I'm an arrogant bastard."  
  
"Are you?" Honestly, Angel hardly knew him at all. Arrogant may have occurred as a descriptive, but not before hotheaded and rash.  
  
"It's a poor dog who doesn't wag his own tail."  
  
That was one way to look at it. One weird ass way, but still valid.  
  
"Do you have any idea who else they're rounding up?" Marc asked him, as Spider perched nervously on the arm of the couch. He had rather gangly limbs, almost too long for his own body. Again, Angel wondered if it was rude to ask a mutant what they could do. What was the protocol there?  
  
"Um, Xavier said Bob had gone off to get Logan."  
  
"Yeah, I figured as much. They're pretty much the pair, aren't they?"  
  
"Huh?" He knew Logan had associated much more with Bob since he introduced them (a move he now deeply, deeply regretted), but never to the level implied. He still couldn't quite believe Logan was someone's avatar, not to mention Bob's. That was so wrong it seemed like a violation of the laws of nature.  
  
"Attached at the hip. But, hey, they make a very good team. Although … Bob doesn't really need back up, does he?"  
  
"Yeah, he is pretty powerful," Spider agreed, nodding.  
  
He had met Bob too?  
  
"Well, the gang's all here, aren't they?" A man said from the doorway. Angel didn't recognize him - he was a tall, black haired man with clear blue eyes, handsome in a classic sense, with a broad chest and lean legs that suggested he worked out quite a bit. "Is Cressida pretending to be an end table so she can spring out and make us piss ourselves?"  
  
It was Spider who shook his head. "She's dead, Quake. But she died fighting, and took all the bastards with her."  
  
The man Spider called Quake looked somber, but nodded in grim resolve. "Sounds like her."  
  
A petite, delicately pretty Chinese woman suddenly came up to Quake, and leaned into him as he put an arm around her. "Oh, poor Cressida," she said. "Was there a funeral? Why weren't we told?"  
  
"There wasn't -" Brendan began, and then instantly stopped, turning away as he turned a pale shade of red.  
  
"There wasn't a funeral," Rogue finished, stepping in for him. "There wasn't … we couldn't have one, exactly."  
  
Angel filled in what both of them didn't say: "There wasn't enough of her left." From the various grimaces, everyone else had guessed that. Angel also noted that Quake and the woman were wearing matching gold rings - husband and wife. He wondered if that was significant.   
  
"Well, she was never big on sentiment anyways," the woman said, as the two of them came into the lobby. "She told me once she didn't want to be buried, just sort of scattered about the houses of people she didn't like."  
  
Spider snickered. "Sounds like Chameleon, all right." The man and woman looked at Angel, and Spider said, "Oh, uh, Tom, Xia, this is Angel. Angel, that's Tom, also called Quake, and Xia, also called Atomic."  
  
Some mutants had the coolest nicknames. "Quake? You start earthquakes?"  
  
With a slightly sardonic smirk, he said, "Yep. The Earth is mine; I can make her turn to jelly."  
  
"If only that power worked on women," Xia teased, giving him a playful poke in the stomach. He chuckled in good humor, and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead.   
  
"Does that mean you have some kind of radiation power?" Rogue's boyfriend asked Xia - obviously he didn't know her either.  
  
This opened the door to everyone discussing their powers, which was a bit of a relief. Xia apparently could generate an impenetrable force field (that must have come in handy); Spider have powers over gravity, which he demonstrated by jumping up from the couch and landing on the ceiling feet first, standing there and looking down at them as if the house had flipped over (creepy - he knew demons who could do things like that; even vampires could, to a small degree, defy gravity a bit, but not as constantly and consistently as Spider); Marcus impressed the new couple with his "package deal" powers (they didn't know him); Rogue could "borrow" other people's powers, which she followed up with a warning that they never touch her bare skin unless they wanted a bad shock (that sounded fun); Bobby, her boyfriend, had ice creating powers, which he proved by holding his hand down on the coffee table and creating a small but impressively detailed ice pyramid. When the conversational round robin came to Brendan, he grimaced painfully and shook his head. "I don't have anything cool. I just turn teal and get spiky. Woo hoo."  
  
Rogue put a (covered) arm around his shoulder, and gave him a friendly shake as she said, "That isn't true! He's really strong, and hard to hurt. Also, he remembers everything in perfect detail, which is actually kind of creepy at times."  
  
"No one ever said I had a good mutation," he replied wryly, a small blush creeping up his neck. Maybe he needed to take Marc's dog advice.  
  
"It's great for tests," Bobby said, also trying to encourage him. Human-demon hybrids seemed inevitably ashamed of their demon half. Angel wondered if that was because it was a Human dominated world, or because of the bad reputations demons inevitably had. (Although mostly fair, it wasn't completely fair - certainly not for peaceable Brachen demons.)  
  
Brendan shrugged a single shoulder before nodding. "Okay, yeah, it's good for that."  
  
When eyes fell on Wesley, who was looking at an old scroll Amaranth gave him before disappearing to who knows where, he simply shook his head. "I'm just a plain old mundane Human; I'm afraid I'm not bringing anything physical to the table."  
  
"He's a demon hunter who's fought supernatural threats for most of his life," Angel said, not ready to have Wesley completely disparage himself out of existence. "He reads all the arcane dialects you can think of, as well as ones you've never heard of, he can cast spells, and he can also kick ass when he has to. Don't let his reserve fool you."  
  
"You can cast spells?" Rogue asked him, clearly impressed. "Does that mean you're a wizard or something?"  
  
Wes scowled at her, but it died quickly. "No, hardly; I'm not in the Guild. I really don't do it that often. At best, I'm a spellcaster, nothing more. Amaranth is the real witch here."  
  
"Guild?" Marc asked, latching on to the actual point. "There's a Wizard's Guild?"  
  
"Who is Amaranth?" Xia asked.  
  
"And why call her a witch?" Tom wondered.  
  
"I mean an actual witch," Wes explained patiently. Angel just knew by the look on his face he was thinking 'Newbies'. "She can cast powerful and complex spells as well as control energies I have no hope of channeling on my own. I'm just the auxiliary back up."  
  
"They exist too?" Xia exclaimed, only slightly surprised. "Man, this world gets weirder every day."  
  
"Well, the apocalypse is upon us," Marc said, shifting restlessly on the couch. "You gotta expect things are gonna get weirder from now on."  
  
He had a point. In fact, Angel knew from past near apocalypses that was always true. He thought about bringing that up, but ultimately decided it would just raise more questions he didn't feel like answering.   
  
Angel suddenly realized the newcomers were staring at him, and Tom asked, "You a demon hunter too?"  
  
Oh god; he always hated these moments. "Uh, no … I'm a vampire." They both raised an eyebrow at him in perfect synchronicity. "But I'm not a bad guy, okay?"  
  
"So are the vampire legends true or what?" Tom continued. "Can you turn into a bat?"  
  
Angel glared at him, aware the supernatural was probably new to him and it wasn't his fault, but there wasn't a single stereotype he hated more than that one. "No, I can't. I can't change shape, I don't have to sleep in a coffin, and garlic doesn't bother me all that much. I mean, if it did, I could never be downwind from Spago's."  
  
"Ooh, hit a sore spot there," Marc commented. When Angel shot him a dirty look, he only gave him one of his patented shit eating grins. Smart ass.  
  
"So what do you bring to the table?" Tom asked, not ready to give it up.  
  
"Vampires are really strong," Brendan said, answering for him. Maybe it was a bit of demon solidarity. "They're also really fast, and hard to kill or disable for any length of time. They have enhanced speed, senses, and agility. Is that the list?"  
  
Belatedly, he realized Brendan was addressing him. "Oh, yeah, that about covers it."  
  
Tom considered that for a moment. "That's pretty good. But do you actually drink people's blood?"  
  
"Generally, vampires do that, yes. But I haven't had Human blood in years."  
  
After a moment of awkwardness, Rogue said, "Wait. If vampires drink blood, but you haven't drank people for a while, what're you-"  
  
"Honey," Marc interrupted her, sitting forward so he could look in her direction. "If you really don't want to know the answer to a question, don't ask it."  
  
Rogue frown at him for interrupting her, but after thinking about it for a moment, she clearly decided she really didn't want to know. Angel was secretly glad.  
  
The silence seemed heavy, filled only by what now seemed to be the ominous ticking of a clock on the mantel and the crinkle of parchment as Wesley continued trying to read the scroll. Finally, Xia asked, "Is Logan here?"  
  
"Bob's bringing him in," Spider said, casually enough that the couple must have known who he was referring to. They all knew Bob?  
  
"Good," she replied, and quickly amended, "He's always good at these sorts of things."  
  
Apocalypses? Angel suddenly wondered if she was an ex of Logan's - why else that self-conscious addendum? Did the hubby know, and did he not like that? He assumed that Bob wouldn't assemble a team that had the potential of falling to betrayal over something as petty as jealousy, but Humans - be they mutant or not - were inherently unpredictable (no matter what Angelus believed).   
  
It was then that Amaranth suddenly popped up in the middle of the room. "Oi, whoever's not busy playing class reunion, I need some muscle outside."  
  
Angel couldn't smell her, and could tell she was slightly translucent around the edges - not her real self, just a psychic projection. "Why?" He asked first.  
  
"Something giving off buttloads of dark power is coming this way, pronto. I want someone to go tell me what it is - I'm busy here, ya know."  
  
No one knew what Amaranth was doing; if Wesley knew, he hadn't shared.   
  
"I'll go,"Marc said with a sigh, jumping eagerly to his feet. "Waitin' around is for the birds."  
  
"I'll come with you," Angel quickly said.  
  
"You can't," Wes interjected, gesturing at the heavy closed drapes. "It's light out. I'll go with you Marcus. Have a weapon for me?"  
  
Without even looking, Marc pulled a gun out of the back of his pocket and tossed it to him. As Wesley caught it easily, Marc pulled a gun out of his coat pocket for himself.  
  
"How will we know big buttload evil when we see it?" Marc asked the Amaranth projection.  
  
She scoffed. "It'll probably be the only thing out there, dipshit. Christ." And with a roll of her theoretical eyes, she winked out of existence.  
  
Marc must have been used to her, because he didn't care. Without a word, he and Wes went out towards the front, and then Xia said, "I'd better go with them. You never know when a Human shield will come in handy." She gave her husband a quick peck on the cheek and slid out of his arms, moving to follow them.  
  
Angel hated feeling useless, but he knew he couldn't even peek out a window to see what was going on. But he was now starting to feel something - like a tiny, almost negligible tic somewhere inside his brain, a bizarre feeling that was slowly growing in intensity, like a larva growing and trying to eat its way out of the confines of his skull. Amaranth wasn't kidding when she said something with lots of dark power was on its way; this felt unlike anything he'd ever felt before.  
  
Angel wondered if the battle had finally been joined, and if Bob had made contingencies to deal with such a thing. 


	5. Part 5

9  
  
Evil drove a Mazda?  
  
Well, actually, that made a lot of sense, considering. Still, Marcus would have assumed it drove a Humvee or an SUV. Or maybe even one of those wood paneled station wagons with a huge ass, oil leak, and no brakes. And a "Honk if you're horny" bumper sticker as the coup de gras.  
  
He had gone outside the gates of the school and stood in the road, hoping to at least temporarily divert the aim of the big ass evil. Wesley was parked on one of the outer walls, a sniper position, in case Marc needed the help once the big bogie locked onto him. Xia was up there with him, ready to shield him from return fire if need be.  
  
He could hear the rapidly accelerating car engine as it roared towards him, but he didn't get a look at it until it rounded the corner of the tree lined drive that led to the fancy, well manicured gates of Xavier's 'school". The first thing he saw was it was a bright blue car, a color that wasn't quite Bob in intensity, but still looked familiar. He was getting a Human heat signature from the car - and again, one that brought on mild déjà vu.   
  
Although he still had a gun out, Marc waved his hands to flag down and stop the car. He was prepared to dive out of the way if it decided to run him down. But the driver stomped on the brakes, and brought the car to a screeching halt in the center of the road. The side window rolled down, and Scott stuck his head out, shouting, "What the hell are you doing, Marcus?"  
  
Boy Scout was big ass evil? Why didn't that surprise him?  
  
Marc turned towards Wesley's hidden position, and shouted, "It's okay! This is Cyclops, one of Xavier's people!" But he didn't holster his gun, not yet - just because it was supposedly Scott didn't mean he was beyond trying something.  
  
"Who are you shouting at?" Scott asked peevishly, glancing towards the gates. "And will you get out of my way? What are you even doing here?"  
  
"There's some weird shit goin' on, man. You almost missed the party."  
  
Scott laughed humorlessly, still revving the car motor. "You're telling me weird shit is going on? Tell me something I don't fucking know, okay? Are you going to get out of my way now?" He was distracted as Wesley manually opened the gates.  
  
"Xia and Xavier confirmed his identity," Wesley told him. "But Amaranth still insists he has something powerful with him." Marcus assumed Xia went to tell the others it was a false alarm, as she didn't come out with him.  
  
Scott's brow furrowed in consternation, pushing his visor down a micrometer. "Who the hell is that?"  
  
"That's Wesley, one of Logan's friends."  
  
From the way he shook his head, he knew Scott had rolled his eyes. "Is Amaranth a friend of his too?"  
  
"No, Bob's … grand-daughter? Something like that - a relative."  
  
Scott groaned as if physically hurt. "Oh wonderful. The gang's all here."  
  
"Like you wouldn't believe." After a pause, he approached the car, taking a surreptitious glance into the back seat, glad his goggles kept Scott from seeing his eyes. "So what d'ya got? Amaranth thinks you got something."  
  
"What? I don't have anything. Except that thing in the trunk."  
  
Bingo. "What's in the trunk? Can you pop it?"  
  
"The trunk? Yeah, but I warn you, I have no idea what the hell that thing is, only that a bunch of people with no eyes want it."  
  
"No eyes?" Marc repeated, as he walked around to the back of Scott's car. The trunk jumped up slightly as Scott released the interior locking mechanism. "How do they find you then?"  
  
"I have no idea," Scott replied, exasperated. "Do you know what the hell is going on? There was an elephant in the subway -"  
  
"Chaos wave," Marc said, and nudged the trunk open from the side, in case something leaped out. Nothing did, which was almost disappointing.  
  
"Chaos wave?"  
  
"Wes, give him the 411." The only thing in the curiously clean trunk (how anal was this guy?) was a spare, a pneumatic jack and other tire changing equipment, a thermal blanket folded into a neat square, and a beaten, dirty backpack. Since the dirty sack stood out like a sore thumb, it must have been what Scott had picked up.  
  
Even before he dumped the pack out onto the street, Marc was picking up an odd energy signature in the infrared spectrum. It was a sickly purplish blue, like something decayed, and the energy seemed jittery somehow - not alive, just … frantic.   
  
What popped out of the sack was a tarnished metal container slightly smaller than a cigar box, but in roughly the same shape. That polluted energy seemed to leak through the seams, the imperfect joins of the box.  
  
Wesley, who had brought Scott up to speed as quickly as possible, joined him in looking at the thing. "Rather small for big ass evil, isn't it?" Marc noted.  
  
But Wes crouched down and peered at it intently. "Not necessarily. Some evil has no physical dimensions."  
  
Now, see, what normal person would say something like that? It was like Wes had walked out of a Bram Stoker novel sometimes. Or so he was guessing - he never did managed to get through an entire Stoker novel. What a whack ass language those Victorians had.  
  
Wesley reached out to tap the box with his finger, as Scott got out of the car to join them. "It's lead," Wesley proclaimed. "Often that metal is used to contain supernatural emanations." Waiting for someone to comment on what a fucking weird statement that was, the Brit glanced up at Scott, and asked, "These eyeless beings after you - did they have claws, and a fringe on their scalp, like a mohawk?"  
  
From the way Scott's jaw slackened, then tightened, he guessed Scott was staring at Wes like he had just snapped and bit the head off a passing infant. "What? No, they were Human! They had their eyes … gouged out, I guess, and they were … well, I'm pretty sure they were dead. I shot one guy, and he … lost pieces, but he didn't even flinch. He just kept coming."  
  
"You shot him?"  
  
"That's his power," Marc explained, getting what Scott meant. Like the Boy Scout packed a Ruger. "He shoots beams from his eyes. That's why the funny headgear."  
  
"Oh," Wes said, as Marc realized Scott had shifted the death stare to him. What? It was true, wasn't it? "Well, zombies are an … unwelcome surprise."  
  
Marc shook his head. "Just blast their kneecaps off. No legs equals stationary zombies."  
  
Wesley gave him a curious look, then said, "Oh, right, you were with Logan in Santo Marco. I guess you have some zombie fighting experience then. Good." He looked back at the box, and said, "Curious that they were able to find you via the object. The lead should be keeping it contained …"  
  
"It's leaking." When they both stared at him, Marc said, "I'm seeing it in infrared. The seam's are imperfect; there's energy coming through."  
  
Wesley sighed in resignation. "That answers that. How did you come across this?"  
  
It took Scott a moment to realize he was talking to him. "Would you believe someone threw it at me in a parking lot?"  
  
Marc scoffed, but Wes seemed to be taking him seriously. "Where did this happen?"  
  
Scott crossed his arms over his chest, and Marc was sure he was getting ready to be defensive. "Hartford, Connecticut."  
  
This sounded more and more like a joke to him, but Wes looked absolutely rapt. "Really? That's one of the first states hit by the wave."  
  
"What?" Both Marc and Scott asked in unison. He wasn't sure which one of them was more surprised.  
  
"That explains it then," Wes continued, as if it did.  
  
"How?" Marc asked.  
  
"Chaos. It isn't all elephants in the subway, or eyeless zombies. Sometimes it's quite subtle."  
  
"Like a guy throwing an evil mystical object at me in the parking lot when I'm taking out my garbage?" Scott asked incredulously.  
  
"Yes," Wesley said, so calm and rational it was hard not to believe him, as irrational as it all seemed. The upper crust British accent probably helped loads; things always sounded more rational coming from the high class Brits (unless they had one of those accents where it sounded like they were talking through a mouthful of pudding - then, they were worse than Cockneys). That's why they were such good villains in spy and action films; they seemed so bloody reasonable, even wanting to blow up the polar ice caps. "In fact, from the sound of it, you've been at the crest of the wave all the way here. That object may have been the only thing keeping you from getting completely swallowed by the chaos; it anchored you here."  
  
"What?" Scott looked at it like he had never seen it before. "But this thing is evil, right?"  
  
"Most likely. But even it has to exist somewhere. Unlike truly living creatures, inanimate objects don't usually shift dimensional planes in a chaos wave, they just shift positions within their own plane. This is doubly true of objects charged with mystical power."  
  
Scott opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, only to try again and quickly abort once more. Marc wasn't sure he got it either, but he wasn't even gonna try and ask. If it was important, he'd hear about it later. Finally, Scott said, "An object at rest tends to stay at rest."  
  
"The third law of thermodynamics?" Marc guessed (it was one of those laws). Was that relevant?  
  
Wesley nodded. "It's one of the few laws of physics still applicable in a chaos wave, even one as unprecedented as this. Objects that have no entropic tendency beyond the normal - and inanimate object that can only decay, but otherwise has no say or control over its own environmental factors - is a "blind spot" in a wave like this. This is why houses aren't being flipped in from pre-industrial age. Houses may shift from Florida to Texas, but they will fundamentally remain unchanged, and no house from another dimension will come in. Unless it's alive. People are the most entropic systems of all, which is why they will be hit the hardest by this wave." Before anyone could ask about that one - Jesus christ, Wes sounded like a big old brainac sometimes, didn't he? He bet he and the Prof could get together and have a grand old time throwing twelve syllable words at each other - he grabbed the knapsack the box had previously been in, and said, "Let's get this inside before the zombies come."  
  
"Do you think that's wise?" Scott asked. "I should get it out of here if it's a magnet for those things. I don't want to bring them here."  
  
It was then, before Wesley could reach for it, that Marc noticed the corroded energy stopped leaking from the box; the seams had sealed up. What the fuck ..?  
  
"Oh no, Scott, I do believe it's just what the doctor ordered," a familiar voice said cheerfully.  
  
They all turned to find Bob leaning casually against one of the open gates, grinning at them with a maniacal glee. "We ready to do this thing?"  
  
Well, at least that explained why the box had sealed up. Bob was a detail oriented kind of guy.  
  
10  
  
Logan knew there'd be "others" here, but he was still surprised to see so many people. Angel for one, who looked deeply uncomfortable among all the strange people (Wes, on the other hand, seemed to be gaining converts with his cool and knowledgeable demeanor), and all his surviving former Organization "colleagues", which was a true shocker. Xia seemed happy to see him - Tom less so - and it was impossible to read Spider's expression, but apparently he'd been teaming up with Marc as of late, which was kind of curious. They all agreed that Specter wouldn't be coming, and even if he did, he would turn invisible and hide under the table until it was all over. Poor Specter - what kind of operative hated violence?  
  
He introduced Yasha around, and she seemed to handle the crowd better than Angel, but then again, she was a beautiful woman who learned to make being aloof work for her, and that often helped. On the other hand, Rogue was occasionally making moony eyes at Angel, who didn't seem to notice (or at least hadn't caught her at it). Bobby didn't look overly pleased about it, though.  
  
Piotr joined the party late, as did Helga, who was wearing the mark of Moros once more - red paint (blood?) circling her right eye, reduced to a single thick, straight line that disappeared into her green hair. Logan wondered if they were all going to have to function under the aegis of a god to fight this - and if anyone would allow it, considering what happened when Camaxtli met Jean.  
  
But Logan knew he was ready. If Bob wanted to amp him up, fine - great. He was ready to go.  
  
Bob waited until he got them all in the lounge (save for Xavier and Amaranth, but they didn't need to be physically in the room to know what was going on) before informing them of the battle plan. Logan really wished he'd have changed his shirt - a General wearing a Comic Book Guy t-shirt and Jim Morrison style leather pants just wasn't naturally inspiring. "Okay, now, I'm gonna split you into teams," Bob told them, not bothering with foreplay. "Everyone will have a different task to complete, and I don't want any of you questioning my group assignments. I swear, I know what I'm doin' here.  
  
"Okay. What I have been able to learn from various sources is that a serious disruption in the dimensional barrier allowed someone to launch a full scale attack on this dimension. Actually, someones - this is a group effort by those who will benefit most from this Earth being chewed up and spit out. They are being inadvertently assisted by a powerful, obscure cult called the Brotherhood of the Panoptes, who believe they are doing this at the behest of their god, Argus. They're not; they're being conned."  
  
"How would they not recognize their own god?" Angel asked, garnering a number of surprised glances, as it never even occurred to anyone to ask such a question. Angel appeared briefly mortified by all the stares.  
  
"They've been mimicking his energy," Bob explained, treating it like the valid question it was. (These god newbies just wouldn't understand.) "And the more they help along the chaos wave, the more dark power is being funneled to them. They'll be the first to die, but when you start getting all that power, it never occurs to you that that very bounty you enjoy can end up tearing you up like a banana in a monkey cage. Right now, they may be the most supernaturally powerful Humans on the planet."  
  
"So how do we fight them?" Tom asked impatiently.  
  
"Note I said Humans; that doesn't include all of us in the room." Bob gave him on of his Cheshire Cat smiles before moving on. "These morons gotta know they're pretty damn powerful, and are probably all stoked on the god lovin', unaware they're bein' actually buggered by the milkman. The chaos wave is far too advanced to make cutting them off from their god power a tactical solution; if the basement's flooded already, killing the main ain't gonna reverse the damage done. But they are a direct conduit to one of the fuckers behind this siege, and that's how I intend to use them.   
  
"Now, here's the big problem. Most of you are Humans, and can't be expected to survive a dimensional transit unscathed, not only face a potential god and have a chance at all -"  
  
"No way," Scott interrupted angrily. Logan just knew he'd be the one to do it. "We're not going to let you put us under the aegis of another god again, not after what happened to Jean."  
  
Logan heard Wesley whisper to Marc, "Who's Jean?" He heard Xia whisper to Storm, "What happened to her?"  
  
"I figured as much," Bob told him. "But ya don't really have to. Ammy's gonna cover you."  
  
"Hold it," Yasha interjected skeptically. "She might be a strong witch, but she doesn't have that kind of power. No witch does."  
  
Bob conceded that with a terse nod. "Most witches don't, no. But Ammy's of the blood, and she's connecting to Aradia right now."  
  
"Of the blood?" Someone asked, and it didn't really matter who. Angel told them, "God blood. She's a … demi-goddess, for lack of a better term."  
  
"Who's Aradia?" Marc asked.  
  
"The goddess of witches," Bob explained. "All goes as planned, Ammy will be operating under her aegis."  
  
They had their own gods too? Wow - it was like there was a god for everything. What sad sack of shit deity was the god of lost keys?  
  
"Aradia has enough power to protect all of you, through Ammy," Bob continued. "But some of you won't need the protection." Notably, he looked in the direction of him and Helga. "I need a ground team, people willing to stay behind and protect Ammy and Chuck. The bad guys are bound to figure out what we're doing, so they 're going to attack here, try and dump our anchor and our protection."  
  
"What about the kids?" Piotr asked, confused but concerned.  
  
"Oh, no worries - I've already shifted them all to Sydney. They think they're on a field trip. Now, don't get your knickers in a twist. They're being looked after by some of my kids, and if things go all diddley fuck, Australia is in the fortunate position of being the most likely last place the chaos wave will hit. 'Cause, as you know, Oz is pretty chaotic on its own. Platypus, anyone?"  
  
Bob had inadvertently confirmed something Logan had been wondering about - what the fuck was Xavier doing? Obviously he was doing something if Bob thought he might need protection. But what? He was being purposefully vague about some things. He was always irritating like that.   
  
"Now, I'll brief the separate teams on their specific goals, but I want you all to understand something. Protection doesn't mean you can't be hurt, or can't be killed; it just means the bad guys will find it harder to do, and your powers will be amped up to actually effect the beings you're fighting. Never forget that you are fighting for your lives, along with everyone else's. If you really think you can't kill if it comes to it, stay with the ground team.  
  
"Also, there are multiple breaches into this dimension, and since I'm intending to take the battle there, you will all be shifting into alternate dimensions. Some dimensions will be exactly as their creators want them to be; others will shift based on your personal perceptions. Meaning, if you expect to end up in a fire and brimstone hell, you will. Do not expect the worst! The experience will be disorienting enough on its own, don't feed it your fears as well."  
  
"Creators?" Storm asked. "Are you saying gods create their own dimensions?"  
  
Bob nodded. "Oh yeah. If you could build your own paradise, wouldn't you do it?"  
  
"Why haven't you?" Marc shot back.  
  
Bob gave him what looked like a variation on his own shit eating grin. "Who says I haven't? Now, I know I'm asking a lot of you as it is, but I'm gonna have to ask for more - I'm gonna have to ask that you trust me. I know most of you don't, but you must believe I don't want Bondi Beach or my family to cease to exist."  
  
Scott sighed heavily. He was going to have a hard time with this, all the way down the line. If Bob was smart, he'd keep him on the ground team.  
  
"One last bit of business, though. I need a volunteer to work under the goddess Ammit. Now, I know what happened to Jean, but I can vouch for Ama. She's not evil, and she has no interest in taking over the Earth. She's easily bored, and she's been there, done that, bought the souvenir bobblehead. She wants to help because it's something for her to do. But she's a vengeance god, and pretty powerful, so if you're afraid you might get overwhelmed, don't volunteer."  
  
"Will she sponsor the undead?" Yasha wondered.  
  
Bob grinned at her. "She isn't prejudiced. Just don't hold back."  
  
"No problem there."   
  
Logan was briefly worried for her, but not for long. It would be better if she was under the aegis of a god; she'd have more protection, be safer, and be a hell of a lot more deadly.   
  
Bob clapped his hands together, and said, "Okay then - let's cowboy up and get stupid."  
  
Finally.  
  
11  
  
For reasons he never explained, Bob not only broke up the teams, but gave them deeply stupid names that obviously amused him.   
  
The ground team - team Pizza ("Greek letter names - Alpha, Beta - are so bloody dull," Bob had claimed) - was Brendan, Wesley, Rogue, Bobby, and -shockingly - Marcus, who really protested angrily until Bob pulled him aside and explained why. "These kids are good. They're trained, and they will fight - but only Brendan will seriously consider enacting the final solution if he has to." 'Final solution' was the obvious code for death. "Wes won't flinch - these will be the bad guys, after all , and he knows what's at stake here - but he still has something he has to do, and he won't be here all that long. In a way, Marc, I'm entrusting you with the hardest job. You're gonna have to protect this place, and your own team as well. They will hesitate to kill - I'm counting on you not to."  
  
He nodded, still not happy about it, but understanding. The kids were really just back up; he was technically on his own here. As he walked away, resigned to it, they heard him grumble, "Stuck here because I ain't a pussy."  
  
(What the hell was Wes supposed to be doing? Logan bet it had something to do with that box Scott brought in.)  
  
Team Vindaloo was Xia, Tom, Helga, and Scott; team Octopus was Angel, Piotr, Spider, and Storm; and team Zebra Crossing ("It's a funny name!" Bob insisted) was him, Yasha, and Bob. He guessed, "We're going after the real big guys, aren't we?"  
  
"You bet your sweet ass," he agreed. "Can I borrow a claw?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Need to cut something."  
  
He popped the center claw on his right hand, and asked, "What?"  
  
Bob grabbed his claw, and used it to slice open the palm of his hand. "Hey!" Logan snapped, retracting his claw and yanking his hand away as Bob's blue blood dripped on the floor. "Are you completely fucking nuts?!"  
  
Bob didn't answer, simply rubbed some blood on his thumb, and said something in a language that Logan didn't understand before reaching out and smearing the blood beneath Logan's eye.  
  
Oh yeah, he forgot about this part.  
  
As soon as the blood touched him, a lightning bolt four times as powerful as the telepathic one he received earlier exploded in his brain, and he felt himself jerk back and hit the wall as his vision fuzzed out blue, the blood on his skin tingling like venom.   
  
"Sorry, but I just thought you'd want to get it over with," Bob said, sounding as chagrined as he ever did.  
  
"Yeah," he admitted, glad Yasha wasn't here right now. She'd gone off with Wes, down to the lab where Amaranth was. He assumed she was getting her god mark too. He hoped it wasn't quite as bad as this.  
  
He straightened up, the ache in his cranium subsiding, the feeling of hot blue plasma swirling in his brain remaining constant. Blue energy seemed to pulse in the corner of his eyes like a phantom heartbeat. "We good here?"  
  
"Almost. First I gotta hand out the jewelry." Bob picked up a bag off the floor - a bag that hadn't been there a second before - and started down the hall towards the lounge.  
  
Was it so wrong to just want to be out there, killing something?  
  
Back in the lounge, groups had glommed together, perhaps trying to get used to the idea of working with each other. Scott looked like he was trying to keep his distance from Helga, as if he was afraid of her tail or something, while Piotr, Spider, and Storm were standing slightly removed from Angel, as if afraid he was contagious. For his part, Angel just looked miserable and ever so slightly pissed. The kids were used to being together, and were absolutely fine with it, but looked scared of Marc, who was sulking on the couch.  
  
Since Angel was - in theory anyways - alone, Logan went over to him and pulled him aside. "Hey, how you guys doing out in L.A.?" He asked.   
  
Angel looked relieved to have someone to talk to who didn't think he was going to go all Dracula on them. His nostrils flared briefly, and while he must have picked up on Bob's blood, he must have known what it was for, because he didn't comment on it. "We're good, considering." Angel nodded his head back in the direction of the rest of team Octopus. "They're new to apocalypses, aren't they?"  
  
"Kinda, yeah. May have to walk 'em through it."  
  
"Figured as much," he sighed.   
  
"So, uh, why haven't I seen Cordy around?" Logan asked. He meant to ask last time he was in L.A., but considering he got kidnapped first, it kind of slipped his mind.  
  
The way Angel grimaced and looked down at the floor, he knew it was bad. "Is she dead?"  
  
Angel looked up sharply. "No …. not … she's in a coma."  
  
Well, better than dead, he supposed. Still not good. "What happened?"  
  
"It's a … long story. After this is all over … I'll buy you a beer and tell you about it sometime, okay?"  
  
Obviously an awkward subject for Angel. It made him that much more curious what had happened to her. Cordy was never much for fighting, so he couldn't really see her getting mortally hurt in the course of a battle, but he hadn't seen her for ages. People changed. "Sure." Logan gestured to Piotr, Storm, and Spider, and said, "Keep 'em alive."  
  
"Do my best," Angel promised, and went back to join them. See, vamp or not, he was a pretty cool guy.  
  
As Logan walked back towards the front of the lounge, he found Scott staring at him, eyebrows raised above his visor. "What's with the war paint?" He asked, swallowing a chuckle.  
  
Logan glowered at him. "It's Bob's blood. It marks me as his avatar."  
  
Scott paled slightly, lips twisting in disgust. "You have to wear his blood?"  
  
He shrugged. "I don't know if I have to or not, it's just what's done. So, are you back or what?"  
  
Scott seemed briefly thrown by the whiplash subject change. "Uh, I don't know. I haven't decided yet. I guess I'll wait and see if there's anything left standing after this."  
  
"Stick close to Hel. She'll get you through this. She's fought gods before."  
  
"Apparently you have too. What an interesting thing to leave off the resume. So what else haven't you told us, Logan?"  
  
He glared at him, wondering if that was some sort of challenge or backhanded comment. "I speak every language known to man, and I used to be a spy," he said, turning his back on Scott and walking away. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but let 'Clops chew on that for a while.  
  
"Right," Bob said, getting up on an end table. Logan's sudden fear that he was going to do a strip tease (Bob was capable of anything) was allayed once he produced that black velvet sack again, and reached inside. "For this to work, you all have to wear these. I don't care where, just have it on your person at all times." Bob tossed out a handful, and Logan easily caught one, not surprised to see what was in his hand.  
  
In the center of his palm was a small jade elephant figure, strung like a pendant on a red cord.  
  
"An elephant?" Scott exclaimed, his voice fading away into a small chuckle. "This is one of your jokes, right?"  
  
"No. These are fetishes of a good mate of mine, Ganesha."  
  
"He knows him," Angel said, to no one in particular, throwing his hands up in a gesture of exasperation. "I owe Wesley ten bucks." What was that about?  
  
"The Hindu god?" Xia said in disbelief.  
  
"With the elephant head, yep," Bob agreed, done tossing out little elephants. "See, he's known as the "remover of obstacles" and is considered lucky. But it's not so much luck as his ability to control entropy within a certain area."  
  
"Entropy," Logan continued, putting the cord around his neck. As much as he hated to admit it, he already knew this shit - no matter how stupid it seemed - actually seemed to work. "Chaos, in other words. That's what you meant by making the chaos work for us - you're turning Ganesha against it."  
  
"Not exactly against it, but in our favor," Bob concurred. The sack had disappeared. "Ganny is going to let you get into the right dimensions; he will also get you home again, and he may influence your fights if chaos energy is at all involved. Entropy can never be used against him; it's as simple as that."  
  
Everyone put on or pocketed their elephant charms, feeling silly but not willing to risk not catching their ride out of here, or not getting a lift home. Logan briefly wondered why Bob gave some to the ground team, but then he remembered they would be in the chaos too, even if they were remaining here. And if they completely fucked up on their end, they'd be all alone in it.  
  
Now he wondered if Ganesha was enough. 


	6. Part 6

12  
  
The groups were splitting up, heading off to their Bob directed "staging areas", when Yasha appeared. The mark on her forehead was something like a red and black 's' - a snake symbol. As Bob gave her a Ganesha fetish, Logan asked, "Was it bad?"  
  
She shrugged. "Holy water was worse." He suspected she was lying, but he wasn't going to press her about it.  
  
While team Vindaloo went out the front and team Octopus went out the back (ground team had gone to the kitchen to get a drink - he knew Marc would be disappointed by no beer), leaving the three of them loitering in the lounge. "So where do we go from here?" Logan wondered.  
  
Bob grinned at them, all teeth and bravado. "We're gonna pay a visit to the Brothers, and ask them who does their gouging."  
  
"Can I bring some salt to rub into their sockets?" Yasha asked. Ouch - bitter much?  
  
"You don't need that - you've got me," Bob claimed, with a strange cheerfulness. "I'm ten thousand times worse."  
  
Oddly enough, Logan had no problem believing that.  
  
***  
  
Scott felt like a moron, but what else could he do?  
  
So he stood with Tom, Xia, and Helga on the front lawn, jade elephants around their necks, waiting for … what the hell were they waiting for anyways? Bob had been vague about that too.  
  
The chaos wave was closer, you could see it in the weather. The wind was whipping the trees around like a gale was moving in, and the sky was one of the oddest colors he had ever seen - a reddish, muddy purple, like decayed meat, shot through with broken blood vessels of livid red. If he wanted to be really dramatic, he could say it looked like the sky was actually breaking under the constant assault, but he wasn't that dramatic.   
  
"So, that mark means you're being protected by a god?" Xia must have asked Helga.  
  
"Yeah, Moros, the god of the depressed."  
  
Was she kidding?  
  
"Never heard of him," Xia admitted, possibly humoring her.  
  
"Neither had I until Bob told me about him. He's the brother of Thanatos, the Greek god of death. Moros is extremely powerful, but he never gets out of bed. Apparently he's been in a suicidal funk for several millennia, but his brother won't kill him, and everyone else is afraid of him. So he just lounges around his dimension like an out of work actor, and never does anything but be miserable."  
  
There was a huge pause before Xia asked, "Are you serious?"  
  
"Well, of course she is," Bob said, joining them. "I'm the only one who's a bit crook around here."  
  
Scott sighed as he stared at him, wondering if he could ever actually punch him. And what the hell was with that t-shirt he was wearing? Did he not even take the possible end of the world seriously? "Can we just get this over with?"  
  
Bob gave him a toothy grin that just made him want to smash his face in. "The fact that you're eager to go tells me you don't actually know how weird this is all gonna be."  
  
"Can it be any weirder than you?"  
  
Bob chuckled, and made a shooing 'get back' gesture with his hands. "I know it's hard to believe, but yeah, it's quite possible."  
  
"I just hope it's not the waiting room again," Helga said.  
  
"Oh, it couldn't be, love. That was my hell."  
  
Scott almost asked, but decided he really didn't want to know.  
  
He felt something thin and strong wrap around his arm and pull him back, and he glanced down just in time to see Helga's whip like green tail slipping away. He had to suppress a shudder of revulsion. Maybe it was because she was so close to Bob and Logan at the same time (which brought on a minor case of the "Ewws") , or just the thought of her as a demon or as an assassin, but something about her seemed to set his teeth on edge. He certainly didn't want her touching him.   
  
(And there was no way in hell Logan was a spy. Okay, he could almost buy that language thing - that was just creepy the way he did that - and assassin? Sure, he could buy that too. But spies had to be inconspicuous, right? There was no way he could ever be inconspicuous with that hair.)  
  
Bob stood maybe twenty feet away, back towards them, and seemed to fold his arms across his chest while he looked up at the sky. But since his eyes were closed, he couldn't have been looking at it.  
  
Scott leaned back, and whispered, "What the hell is he doing?"  
  
"He's getting us our lift," Helga whispered back. "Now shut your pie hole."  
  
But Bob didn't seem to be doing anything, he was just standing there. Except … was he starting to glow?   
  
Yes, he was; he was outlined in blue energy that seemed to have no source at all … unless it was bleeding through him …  
  
The wind started to swirl around him like Storm was trying to encase him in a funnel, but Bob appeared perfectly untouched; not even his hair was mussed. Scott then realized the funnel wasn't just around Bob, it was around all of them, kicking up a solid wall of debris that hid the mansion from their sight … and yet the wind wasn't touching them at all. They were the eye of a very personal hurricane.   
  
"Now remember, clear your mind of all thoughts," Bob said, pivoting to face him. His eyes were now all blue, the same electric blue as the aura, and tendrils bled beyond the confines of his sockets. For some reason, it was always startling to see him look so inhuman, even though he was never anything but. "Expect nothing. Prepare for anything."  
  
That almost sounded like a Zen koan. It was then Scott got the oddest feeling, and looked up -   
  
- in time to see something black and limned with bright silver energy fall right on top of them.  
  
***  
  
Even though he was told he would be safe, Angel instinctively cringed and lingered in the doorway, not wanting to step out into daylight.  
  
No matter that the sun had been swallowed by a sky as magenta as a club kid's hair, or that it might not even be the sky proper - with a chaos wave, they could be looking at an interdimensional bleed, or up at the ground of another dimension or even through someone else's sea. It could be anything, and probably was.  
  
The mutant trio of Clive, Ororo, and Piotr all looked back at him curiously. "Is something wrong?" Clive asked. "Well, beyond everything, I mean."  
  
"Uh, no," he lied, holding his hand out tentatively, awaiting the burn. But it didn't happen, so he edged out warily, body still tensed for instant flight. It was hard to conquer the atavistic response. Somewhere, beneath all this oddity, he could smell the sun. It was out there somewhere, just hidden for the moment. Or for all eternity, depending on how this played out.  
  
Piotr - the guy who turned metal (which could be unfortunate if it happened while he was swimming) - looked up at the would be sky, and said, "It's pretty, isn't it?"  
  
"It's wrong," Storm - it was just easier to call her Storm - said, with a sour frown. "I can't even control anything."  
  
"Really?" The big guy held his own hand up to his face, and Angel watched as metal seemed to flow over the palm - well, no, it was his skin, wasn't it? It just looked like it was moving as it changed density. "Mine works."  
  
"Yours isn't tied to the elements," she replied brusquely. "They're all wrong."  
  
"The chaos wave would hit the atmosphere hardest," Angel said, although that was probably patently obvious now. "Weather is a chaos based system, so it would be the first to go apeshit."  
  
They all stared at him like he was on fire (Was he?! No, no, he wasn't even smoking - good), and finally Clive took pity on him. "I guess so," he agreed, glancing up at the alien sky.  
  
Angel felt a prickling sensation along his skin, something both familiar and odd, and turned around, expecting to see … what? He honestly didn't know, just not anything as mundane as the back of the house, which was all he saw.   
  
Storm was still staring at him, and he guessed she really hated vampires; it wasn't personal, just a species thing. "How do you know Bob?" She said it like an accusation. She didn't like Bob either? Well, that was reasonable too.  
  
"He helped me out once. And, uh … we stopped a Hellmouth from opening in L.A. once."  
  
"Hellmouth?" Piotr asked. "What's that?"  
  
"How did he help you out?" Clive asked.  
  
He sighed, aware he shouldn't have brought it up. "A Hellmouth is a stable opening into a Hell dimension. And Bob helped me kill an indestructible Hell guardian. But he didn't help all that much - he just gave me a knife and Spike a chainsaw."  
  
There was that group stare again, like he'd just grown an extra head out of his back. "Spike?" Piotr repeated curiously. "Hell guardian?"  
  
"Chainsaw?" Clive added.  
  
"There's a lot of back story we're missing here, aren't we?" Storm said.  
  
"Um, yeah. I'm not sure there's time to explain." Actually, he hoped there wasn't. He really shouldn't have mentioned it.  
  
"No worries, Angel, you've been saved by the apocalypse," Bob said, suddenly appearing by the back door. He started towards them, hands in his pants pockets, blue veins standing out in his temples. "Bet that's happened before, 'ey?"  
  
Angel rolled his eyes and looked away, trying to restrain the urge to tackle him. It would probably never work, but it was nice to dream.  
  
"By the way, you might want this," Bob said, and suddenly threw a doubled headed battle axe at him - where the hell had that come from?! Angel caught it by its leather wrapped handle, and was impressed by its weight. It was a good one. And powerful too … smelling of blood. Bob's blood.  
  
He examined the blade closely, and saw a streak of blue on the edge of it. He glanced up at Bob with a quirked eyebrow. "Is this thing gonna burn me?"  
  
"Not my kind; my kind seems to like you," he replied nonchalantly, making Angel wonder what the fuck he was talking about. He couldn't handle that god blessed knife of his without wearing gloves, so what was Bob saying exactly? It was established he was a fallen god, no matter how he lied and pretended to be something different.  
  
Was Wesley's theory right? Bob was a fallen Power? He had actually asked them once, and they denied it - but whenever he met them through their Oracles, the PTB's were frustratingly cryptic and sometimes outwardly hostile. They had lied to him before - well, in a roundabout way; they just didn't tell him something he needed to know. It wasn't a big leap for them to deny something and be less than honest.  
  
(But what was the difference between a god and a Power That Be? Wesley said there was some division, but he couldn't specify. Maybe it was that gods seemed to have very specific powers - like mutants? - while PTB's were simply powerful, without a specific limitation. But that didn't make sense, because Bob had limits - he couldn't read Ressiks and Freniks, for one. Then again, if Bob was the Fallen, he'd had his ass booted out of the club: they wouldn't let him be as powerful as the rest of them. Shit, this was starting to make a lot of sense…)  
  
"Are we all getting axes?" Clive asked, sounding less than enthused about the prospect.  
  
"I don't know how to handle a chainsaw," Piotr volunteered nervously.  
  
Bob chuckled warmly. "No worries, mate. Only Angel gets the medieval gear. He can fight without a weapon, but he usually likes to have one."  
  
Did he have to say that out loud? "I don't …" He protested, looking at the others. "I've fought without weapons lots of time. I'm a vampire - I am a weapon!"  
  
But they really didn't care; impatience was etched on all their faces. The longer they were here, the more anxious they got. Better to get it all over with. When you were busy doing something, you didn't have time to think, to ponder how bad things were and how bad they could get. In the thick of things, you usually didn't think about the end of the world; you just thought about surviving.  
  
"Get close," Bob instructed. "The dimensional breach isn't that large, and I want to make sure you all end up in the exact same place."  
  
"Back to back," Angel added. "We don't know what we may end up in the middle of."  
  
Bob gave him a lopsided grin as his bright cobalt irises seemed to expand, spreading across his inky pupils like a stain, making the whites disappear beneath a sea of blue. "See, this is why I figured we'd need you Angel. You can't beat an apocalypse veteran to lead a charge."  
  
"Veteran?" Storm asked. "How many times has the world almost ended?"  
  
"Umm … well, I haven't really kept count," Angel admitted, grimacing in embarrassment. He knew he had missed several; many were before his time. "I've only been involved in five … or is it six? I know there were at least two I only heard about later …" He trailed off as Storm continued to stare at him with her pale blue eyes, and he didn't know if she was angry for lying, stunned, or just unable to believe that there had been several near Armageddons that no one heard about. Well, no one that wasn't involved in creating them or stopping them. There was a whole other world out there that people had a tendency to ignore, until it crashed right into their own living rooms. And even then, sometimes the wall of denial was still impenetrable.  
  
"Chat later," Bob suggested. His eyes were completely full of blue energy now, and he was surrounded by an animate aura of it like a skin tight visible force field. Angel could feel it like static electricity. "It's time to fly, my pretties."  
  
Angel now felt something else. That prickling sensation again, this time ten thousand times worse, and he couldn't help but tense, gripping the handle of the axe so hard he could barely feel his fingers. He hated inter-dimensional transport - hated it.  
  
The sense of power enveloped them, followed by a darkness that was as much a tangible thing as a transitional state.  
  
He wondered where they'd end up, and how bad it was going to be.  
  
13  
  
It was a joke; a sick, twisted Bob joke. Next time he saw him - if he ever saw him again - he was going to kick his demon/god ass.  
  
After a moment of nausea and dizziness, Scott found out he was standing - well, staggering - in a field of waist high golden grass, beneath a bright yellow sun and clear blue sky. Had that dirty son of a bitch just transported them all to Kansas?  
  
"This is another world?" Xia asked in disbelief, the first one of them to speak aloud. "It looks like Nebraska."  
  
Nebraska, Kansas - close enough. One of those flats states kind of in the middle.  
  
Helga didn't seem all that affected by the transport, probably because she was demonic. Her tail twitched like an irritated cat's, and she said, "Oh yeah, we aren't in Kansas anymore." Oh what, was she telepathic now? "This place stinks of death."  
  
"It does?" He took a deep breath, and smelled … plants. Some kind of grain slowly baking in sunlight, or perhaps hay. It wasn't an unpleasant smell at all; there was a sweet undertone of clover as well. "Um, no it doesn't."  
  
Tom nodded. "It smells like French fries, actually. Weird."  
  
Xia looked at him sharply. They were all spaced about three meters away from each other, Helga the crux of their loose circle. "No it doesn't; it smells like apples."  
  
"You're both wrong," Scott pointed out. "It smells like a field."  
  
Helga scoffed, shaking her head, tail continuing to twitch back and forth. "Anybody got a coin we can flip to see who's right?"  
  
Bob had warned them of this, hadn't they? All getting what they expected. But he didn't expect to see a field - he didn't expect anything. And did Tom really think he'd smell French fries? This didn't make sense. "What does everyone see?" Scott asked. "Tell me."  
  
Things got immediately weirder, as they all apparently saw the same thing: a huge field of golden grass, stretching on unbroken for what seemed to be eternity, at some distant point connecting with the wide and lowering azure sky. Except for one thing. "There's something over there," Helga insisted, pointing behind him.  
  
Scott had done several three sixties, carefully taking in the area, but there wasn't much to take in - it was Earth as a field, as a sea of wheat or something similar. It was a peaceful, pastoral wasteland, about as threatening as a wastepaper basket.  
  
"There's nothing anywhere," Scott scoffed, glancing over his shoulder. Helga seemed to be pointing into nothingness, stuck between the gold and the blue. "And there's nothing there either. What - " He stopped and froze, surprised. As he started to turn away, he saw it, out of the corner of his eye.  
  
At first he thought it was a hillock of some sort, but the longer he watched, the more it seemed to … transform. The mound became a mesa, then an edifice, something huge and black blotting out the open sky.  
  
"What the fuck is that?" Tom exclaimed, as they all apparently saw it now.   
  
Scott allowed himself to turn and face it head on. The thing seemed to have swelled, become impossibly massive - maybe one hundred meters wide and at least that tall. It seemed to be a wall made of metal bars that showed through the egg white concrete like ribs through a starving man's flesh. Behind its enveloping walls was …a castle? Something like a castle; they could see its sharply pointed top, like a gigantic spear stabbing out towards the sky.  
  
There was no opening in the wall - none. Not even a seam.  
  
"How come we didn't see this before?" Xia asked. No one - not even Helga - had an answer for her.   
  
After a moment of staring at it and waiting for something to happen, nothing did, and Scott let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. There was nothing right about this - the walls even sparkled vaguely, as if they contained mica - but he was relieved that some sixty foot monster hadn't shambled through the wall, or some demonic army hadn't come swarming over like ravenous cockroaches.   
  
But they were here to stop some kind of dimensional siege, yes? And as this was the only place in sight, if there was an attack in occurrence, this had to be its home base.   
  
"Think we should knock on the door?" Helga said. It wasn't really a question.  
  
"Yeah, we should," he agreed. Scott braced himself, in case he was overpowered (like when they fought Fenrir), and fired a tight beam at the wall. He didn't go flying backwards like that time, he had braced himself appropriately, but he could feel the energy he released was … greater somehow.  
  
But not great enough.  
  
The crimson beam hit the wall, and rebounded off it, like a laser hitting a mirror.   
  
Shit. "Duck!" Scott shouted, diving into the grass. He was pretty sure the others must have reacted just as quickly, as it seemed to zip off into nothingness; there was no sound of impact.  
  
He laid there, looking up at a sky that looked like his own, looking up through grass that could have been his own, and still smelled hay and clover. Whatever this place was, it was trying to look like Earth; be like Earth. But why? If they hated it so much, why mimic the very thing they were trying to destroy. It made no sense at all.  
  
What was he thinking? When did any of this make sense? When did living in a world full of gods, vampires, and eyeless zombies seem reasonable?  
  
He was insane. The cheese fell off his cracker, and he never even noticed until now. He always thought madness was a screaming, raging thing - like Logan and his nighttime psychotic breaks - but maybe it too could be more subtle than that. Maybe your entire world could shift, and you'd never notice anything until you saw your paintings were crooked.  
  
He just laid there, feeling the warmth of another sun, listening to the calming sound of a breeze rustling the grass, and suddenly Helga piped up, "Let's not do that again."  
  
From a position several feet South of his, Xia said, "I think they may have a forcefield of some kind surrounding the parapet. Let me have a try at it."  
  
"Go," Scott agreed. Well, at least Xia had a forcefield too - at worst, it was a stalemate.  
  
She stood and started walking towards the fortification, hands balled into fists at her sides, and Scott climbed to his feet, not at all sure why he was reluctant to do so. Maybe it would have been better if this didn't seem so much like Earth; if it was just more alien, it would have been okay.  
  
But he couldn't shake the feeling that they really hadn't gone anywhere. This was Earth, he knew it. Just Earth … slightly off.  
  
It made him wonder where everyone else had gone.  
  
14  
  
Henry Kissenger had been right - power was the greatest aphrodisiac. But not in the way he meant.  
  
Greg (no, no, his name was Gregori right now - he could see it in his mind, in bold Gothic script) stood on what had to be someone's penthouse garden on the top of a tall condo in Manhattan, overlooking a good chunk of New York, the sky above a roiling sheet of pure energy cycling through the primary colors so fast it blurred into the blended colors: magenta, teal, orange, violet, brown, gray, pink, cyan, black. It gave the cityscape below him shadows that seemed like living things, crawling over rooftops and facades, sliding along the rutted gray streets like angry shadows.  
  
And he had no eyes. He was seeing all of this, and he had no eyes.  
  
The realization brought on the same silly giggle it always did. Idiots - morons! See, he was right - he always knew he was right.  
  
He used to be the same kind of nothing as those stupid people down there, scurrying for safety from the implacable tide. His parents used to drag him to church when he was a child, and he used to believe that the god they shoved down his throat was dead or a fairy tale, but he would discover later that wasn't true. The god they worshipped was a amalgamated myth, an easy to swallow encapsulation of several fables and traits of real gods rolled up into a single ball; it had never existed on its own. It was one big joke, played by the higher beings on their lessers, to see what the fools could be induced to worship. He was sure all of the "accepted" religions were that way as well.  
  
Argus was one true god. He promised his followers a part of his glory, a part of his kingdom, and he delivered. In exchange for his eyes, he not only got a smidgen of His power, but he got new eyes - not physical, but better. He could see from one side of Manhattan to the other; he could see Argus's energy as it pulsed in the sky like His heart.  
  
He could see the dead before they even knew they were doomed.  
  
He could feel the power all around him like it was an extension of his own body. It was sensual, erotic, and made him feel like he was the world; he was all of existence, and the little people below him were pests who had invaded him, foreign bodies that needed eradicating as soon as possible.   
  
No drug could ever be this good. He had never felt so alive in his entire life. It seemed as if everything he was, had ever been, had been leading up to this moment.  
  
He turned back to his followers, his loyal brotherhood, and stepped out of the air, back onto the solidity of the rooftop garden. "All is as it should be," he proclaimed, unable to keep the smile off his face.   
  
His people, rid of their mundane and frail eyes, stared up at him from their spots around the garden. He had no idea what these plants were - nor did he care - only that they were green and clipped down in a uniform style, brightened up with the occasional red, pink, and white flowers. It was all dull and bourgeois, right down to the mosaic tiles and the tiny water fountain with the bewinged faux stone angel in the center. He wondered who would dare own such a grotesque monument to excessive wealth. Was it those people they sacrificed in the penthouse? If so, they should have been much harder on them.  
  
"But …" Mario began anxiously, pausing before he continued. He was seated on a narrow cement bench by the fountain, hands twisting nervously in his lap. "I thought He was going to create a paradise."  
  
"He is. His paradise; ours will come after His. Are you questioning His wisdom?"  
  
"No! No, Hierophant, I would never do that," he claimed, leaping immediately into sycophant mode. Peasant. " But … uh … I didn't realize so many people were gonna die. I thought he would just -"  
  
"Just what?" He snapped. Mario was weak, he'd always known it. So why did he keep him on? Because he had the van? There was no point anymore - he was either with them or against them, and if his faith was less than true, Argus would gut him and wear his entrails for a coat. "Forgive the non-believers? Welcome them into his loving embrace? You have let the small minds brainwash you - gods are better than us. We are the mice in their homes, the vermin that feed on their crumbs. There are no benevolent gods, not like the weak try and cram down your throat. The Highers that are kind to us are weak themselves; they have grown attached to their stupid pets, and cannot bear to be rid of them. The strong have no need of the weak." He pointed at the fountain behind Mario, and said, in the arcane language the voice of Argus had taught him, "Blood."  
  
The water gurgling in the fountain became crimson, the blood of the non-believers, the sheep below. Mario looked, jaw slack, and seemed to want to say something, but didn't know what.  
  
"I think you're weak," Gregori told him. "Are you weak, Mario?" What was he going to do with him? Throwing him off the roof seemed so pedestrian, but it would be fun to see him splat on the pavement like a bug against the windshield.  
  
He stared at him as best he could with empty sockets, the fear coming off of him visible in the air like tendrils of puce. "N-no -"  
  
"The swallowed seeds of arrogance, breeding in the thoughts of ten thousand fools who fight irrelevance," An unfamiliar, accented voice sang, before switching to speech. "Ya know what the worst part of all of this is? You may be a power drunk idiot, but you're actually more on the mark about the Highers than you will ever know."  
  
Standing by the roof access door was a tall man in a Simpsons shirt and leather pants, head cocked to the side as he took them all in with a single glance, and almost instantaneously dismissing them; he could see it in his unnaturally bright eyes.  
  
"Disembowel," Gregori commanded in the Old language, pointing at him.   
  
(The man … he didn't look right at all, did he? He was like a partial blind spot…)  
  
The spell had worked before - he used it on that cabbie who almost hit him at the crosswalk - but absolutely nothing happened to the blind spot man. "You don't fuck around at all, do ya, Greg?"  
  
"Do not call me that," he snapped. How did he know his name?  
  
"Even if I am your god?" He replied. He finally placed his accent - Australian, like that annoying Crocodile Hunter guy. "I am Argus, my man. Don't you recognize me?"  
  
"Blasphemer!" He roared. "You are not Him!"  
  
He waved his hand dismissively, and said, "Flame on."  
  
All the shrubs suddenly burst into flames all around them, eliciting gasps of shock from the Brotherhood, most of whom instantly dropped to their knees and brought their foreheads down to the ground, classic poses of supplication. But Gregori remained on his feet, furious at this … this pretender. "Extinguish!" He commanded, but nothing happened. The shrubs continued to burn, the flames becoming an odd, clear blue that felt powerful, but seemed to give off no heat at all.  
  
"Don't piss on the parade, mate," the interloper said with false amiability. He started stalking towards him, passing the idiotic worshippers prostrate at his feet. "This is classic! Burning bushes - all gods have to have the burnin' bush thing now. Kinda like an Tom Jones impersonator always has to do "What's New, Pussycat". It's just expected now."  
  
Gregori stood his ground, but now his stomach was starting to twist itself in knots. The blind spot was starting to glow blue, like the flames, and he knew he was not a Human warlock, or a Human at all. He was … what could he be? "Argus will crush you."  
  
"If he fell on me, I've no doubt he could," he agreed. "But I don't see him shifting his fat ass off the couch, not with a "Three's Company" marathon on."  
  
He was so furious he could feel his blood pulsing in his head, the pressure so great he thought it might explode. "What the fuck do you want, heretic?"  
  
The man chuckled good naturedly, while Gregori suddenly noticed two other people standing beside the door, a hairy man with a blue streak under his left eye, and an Asian woman with a snake tattoo on her forehead. They too seemed to be masked somehow from his new vision. "Well, asshole, what I want is your connection to your supposed god. You can let me have it, or I can take it. You have five seconds to decide, before I turn my friends loose on you. You remember them, don't you? Is this the guy?"  
  
"That's the guy," the hairy guy agreed. Didn't he look … familiar?  
  
"Ah, okay. So, Greg, make your choice - be mentally chewed up and spit out by a weak god, or be chewed up and spit out by a weak god after Wolverine and Lady Blood have beaten every single ounce of shit out of you. Five … four…"  
  
Greg stepped back to the edge of the roof, and tried to take to the air, but his power seemed blocked somehow. He could no longer cast spells, and seemed to be stuck here, on the top of this building, with some asshole pagan and his weird ass followers, his own followers apparently gullible enough to believe he was their god simply because he brought a bag of parlor tricks.   
  
Maybe this was a test. Perhaps Argus was testing his faith before showing him His true face. Why else cut him off from the source of his power? Yes, that had to be it. Argus wanted to see how loyal he would be in the face of seeming defeat. There was only one thing he could do; only one thing that would prove himself to Argus once and for all, show him he was truly worthy of the power he bestowed on him.  
  
He stepped backwards off the roof, and let himself fall. 


	7. Part 7

He felt himself plummeting towards the ground far below and closed his internal eyes, reaching out to Argus with his mind, calling him to save his faithful servant -   
  
- and felt himself back on solid ground. Argus had come through for him! So it was a test …  
  
But when he opened his eyes, he found himself staring into bright blue eyes.   
  
"Now, really - did you actually think you were gonna get away that easy?" The man said, a sarcastic, chiding edge to his voice.  
  
Greg looked around in disbelief. He had never left the roof.  
  
His useless brothers were still prostrate, while the heretic had been joined by the Asian woman (she was a vampire - her aura was dead) and the hairy man, who still looked familiar. Did the vampire kind of look familiar too? Having them stand side by side brought on déjà vu. They both glared at him with a hate that suggested familiarity, while the heretic simply crossed his arms over his chest and looked as if he was bored. "I think Greg has picked the hard way," the Aussie said. "What shall we do?"  
  
The hairy man cracked his knuckles, and it sounded … odd somehow; not like bones cracking, but something metallic. "Can I make a suggestion?" Greg tried to move back, or away, or at all, but found he was frozen to spot. The only thing he could manage to do was blink.   
  
He realized his crisis of faith was only just beginning.  
  
15  
  
If you stood in exactly the right spot in the front hall, you could look out two windows on opposite sides of the house.  
  
Out one window, it was obviously day, the winds so violent they were causing the trees to writhe as if in pain, thrashing back and forth across the backdrop of the violently mauve sky. But the other window, the one of the right hand side, showed a calm night with a gentle drizzle pattering against the windowpane. It was really fucking freaky - like being caught between worlds, which was probably true.  
  
The kids were restless. In the beginning, they paced the halls a bit, but then they realized they might be in for the long haul, so they went back to the lounge and tried to watch television. The reception was still gone, so they decided to watch a DVD instead. It worked for a few minutes (Did Xavier know they have the Aqua Teen Hunger Force DVD? It was shit funny, but, cartoon or not, it was meant for adults), and Marcus found himself lingering in the lounge doorway (he loved that episode…), watching it too instead of being on guard like he should have been.  
  
The DVD picture suddenly fuzzed out, jumping from the somewhat crudely animated cartoon to … what the hell was that? He tilted his head, and figured it was some kind of sci-fi show; it looked like a guy in elaborate makeup, with a flat, reptilian face and large silver eyes. "Did Bob go already?" Snake face asked.  
  
All three of the kids yelped in shock, Brendan bounding to his feet while Bobby hopped behind the couch. Marc pulled out a gun and approached the set warily, snake face watching him without expression. "And you are?" Marc wondered. Bobby had his hands up, as if ready to freeze the set, and Brendan had gone all teal and spiky. Rogue was just sitting up on the couch, looking as if she was trying to remember if she had seen him before or not.  
  
"Degei," the man on the set replied. "The Fijian serpent god, guardian of the realms of the dead. He may have mentioned me."  
  
The three of them exchanged glances. Was this guy for real? "Uh, not recently," Marc finally told him.   
  
The snake faced guy nodded, as if that was reasonable. "I just got his message through my babies. I'm willing to help."  
  
"Your babies?" Rogue asked.  
  
"Snakes."  
  
"Sure, that would make sense," Brendan agreed, in a way suggesting he was on the verge of hysteria.  
  
"Do you need help?" Degei asked. "I could send some of my children to help guard-"  
  
"No, thanks, we're cool," Bobby said quickly. Didn't like snakes, huh? Well, some of them could be pretty nasty.  
  
"Okay. Good luck to you." Degei's face then disappeared, replaced by the scene interrupted, involving Meatwad and his "Jiggling Billy" doll.  
  
Okay - who had said this couldn't get more surreal? Did anyone, or had he just thought it? Either way, it had just gotten so weird he was pretty sure he would welcome a zombie attack right now.  
  
Rogue paused the DVD, and asked, "Did that just happen? Did a Fijian snake god just talk to us through the t.v., or did I just have a psychotic breakdown?"  
  
"No, we all saw it," Marc assured her. "Unless it was a shared hallucination."  
  
Bren sat back down beside Rogue, but hadn't reverted from his demon form yet; he was still too freaked out to go back to Human. "Did anyone known there were Fijian gods?"  
  
Bobby realized he looked silly using the couch as a shield now, so he climbed back over the sofa, on the other side of Rogue, and replied, "Not by name, but you gotta assume they have some. Nearly everybody does, right?"  
  
It was in the sudden silence that Marc noticed something. He heard the wind howling on one side of the house, the rain peppering the roof on the other side, and … a dry crackling noise. Not like fire, but like someone crushing twigs in their fist. What the hell was that?  
  
As he turned to try and locate the noise, he saw Wesley coming up the hall, a curious look on his face. "We picked up a massive energy surge up here …"  
  
'We' must have been him and Amaranth. "Degei the serpent god just paid us a visit through the boob tube - he was wondering if Bob was still around."  
  
Wesley only looked mildly surprised. "Degei? Really? Did he leave some snakes behind?"  
  
Obviously he knew who Degei was. Lucky him - he was the only one. "He offered, but we turned it down."  
  
The Brit nodded. "Fair enough. He might send some anyways."  
  
"He might?" Bobby asked, trying to conceal his anxiety at the prospect.  
  
"What's that noise?" Bren asked, standing up again and looking around.  
  
"What noise?" Rogue asked, and then they all fell silent, listening attentively.  
  
There it was again - crunch crunch crunch, like someone far away walking in Mini-Wheats. Even Wesley cocked his head curiously, and looked around, as if trying to figure out if the noise was coming from up above them.  
  
Bren suddenly stood up on the sofa. "It's in this room."  
  
It was then that the noise suddenly stopped. Did it know it had been sussed?  
  
Then there was a huge cracking noise, like those big old Shredded Wheat brillo pads giving way, and a huge swarm of black things suddenly flooded in from a new, horizontal hole in the outer wall, just beneath the far window.   
  
Rogue screamed and jumped up on the couch beside Brendan, as the wave of black things resolved into … rats. Dozens upon dozens of huge black rodents - about the size of guinea pigs, with strangely glowing yellow eyes - swarming across the floor, claws clicking against the hardwood floor as they rushed them in wave after wave, like a sewer had backed up and this was a fucking grain warehouse.  
  
Marc pulled his guns (out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wes had pulled his as well), and just as he took aim, Bobby - who had joined Bren and Rogue standing on the sofa - shot out two parallel streams of ice, seemingly from his hands. The rats froze and Bobby poured it on, making a huge rat ice floe, a thick floor of vermin-sicles, and for good measure iced over the hole they chewed through the wall. They couldn't move to chew threw the ice.  
  
"That was very good," Wesley said. If the guy was anymore deadpan, he'd be lapsing into a coma.  
  
Rogue sighed, holding on to his upper arm with both of her gloved hands. "Thank you."  
  
"I hate rats too," Bobby said, still looking wide eyed with fear.  
  
"If that was panic, panic more often," Marc told him, not ready to admit he was a bit freaked out. These weren't just big fucking sewer rats - although they were; the biggest he had ever seen - but their eyes were fucking glowing! Demonic rats?  
  
"If you let Degei send some of his children, they could've eaten the rats," Wes pointed out, and Marc scowled at him until he looked away. Maybe that was true, but it wasn't fucking helpful right now.  
  
"Why would a bunch of rats attack us?" Brendan asked, looking around at the frozen rodents with a grimace of revulsion. Seemed no one here was a fan of big ass rats.  
  
"They could be harbingers, or foot soldiers," Wesley suggested.   
  
"Rats are soldiers?" Bren asked dubiously. He was the first one to step off the couch, but looked ready to hop back on at the first sign of rat movement.  
  
"These were clearly not ordinary rats," he said, pointing out the patently obvious. "It could be they were the first wave, testing on our defenses."  
  
"Shit," Marc cursed, looking down both ends of the hall. He was right; they could have been simply cannon fodder, a distraction from the real attack.  
  
"I assume the doors have been barricaded?" Wes asked him.  
  
"Triple locked, braced with furniture, and whatever weird ass spell you threw on them," he replied. "But all its gonna do is warn us when they come, isn't it?"  
  
Wesley grimaced and half shrugged, hating to admit it. "Most likely. We could be attacked by things that don't need to use a door. Such as these."  
  
"Let's get moving people," he told the kids, feeling weird calling the kids "people". They were, but just weren't the kind he was used to addressing. "Everyone needs to get on point now. You have your assigned area of the house - get there."  
  
Everyone was off the couch, but still looking back warily, as if daring the rats to bust through their ice prison and come after them.  
  
"I guess you're good, Bobby," Marc commented. "Any of you others want a weapon?"  
  
"I'm a suck ass shot," Bren said sheepishly. "I could barely hit a target from six feet away. Logan promised me he'd teach me how to aim the next time he had a chance."  
  
"I don't like guns," Rogue said. "And I think that soldier I absorbed is totally gone. I don't even remember his name."  
  
"But you've absorbed Logan, right? Any of him still around?"  
  
"Oh yeah, I almost killed him." Just a matter of fact statement; nothing she was particularly proud of. "He's got this little partition in my mind ... I don't think he's ever going away. The Ressik seems to be lingering too, but I swear I didn't kill him."  
  
"Logan can shoot a gun," Marc pointed out. "He's not a bad shot either."  
  
Rogue brought a hand to her head as she thought, wincing as if going into the Logan "partition" was a painful thing to do. Knowing him, it probably was. "Oh yeah," she finally said. "But I still don't like guns."  
  
Marc nodded towards the frozen sea of vermin. "Wanna absorb a big giant demon rat instead?"  
  
She hardly needed to think about it. "Nothing with a big kick," she answered, holding out her hand.  
  
Marc did a mental inventory of the weapons he was currently packing, and went for the one strapped in a holster near his left ankle. "This one barely has any recoil at all," he said, pulling out the .9 millimeter. "It's no good at a distance for that reason, but it's full of fragmenting bullets, so almost any shot you land should slow your target down." He handed the blued steel gun to her butt first, but she still seemed wary to take it. When she finally did, he added, "You really don't want to kill something, go for an extremity shot - arms, legs. Unlikely to kill even with fragmenters, but still pretty debilitating. Especially leg shots." Okay, so he was lying, somewhat. With fragmenters, almost any reasonably good shot, especially to the body, was a potential kill. Even if one of the fragments didn't slice through an artery or ricochet through a vital organ, the damage was usually so massive fatal shock was almost inevitable if help wasn't fast in coming. But she wasn't tapping into enough of Logan to be able to kill an enemy indiscriminately - although he believed she'd probably have no trouble blowing away the possessed rat trying to eat off her face.  
  
Wes gave him a sidelong glance, like he knew he was fudging (Brit knew his weapons, did he? How? He knew for a fact they didn't like guns in Britain ... maybe poor Wes had been in America too long), but he decided to play along, as it was ultimately for the best. "I have to get back downstairs," Brit said, obviously hesitant.   
  
"Go, we'll handle it from here." Or at least he hoped they could.  
  
But it was famous last words. Because, at exactly that moment, there was a huge, explosive "Crack!" from the back of the house, sending a shudder through the floor as if an entire wall had collapsed. This was followed by a screeching, deep throated roar that made them all wince and cover their ears as the sound seemed to vibrate deep inside their chests.  
  
That was no Human plane noise. And it was something big too; fucking huge.  
  
When they could hear again, Marcus heard Wesley, his eyes as wide as silver dollars, gasp. "Dear lord: Beserkers."  
  
Well, that didn't sound good.  
  
***  
  
They materialized in pitch black.  
  
"I think I'm blind," Piotr said, somewhere Southeast of him. "I can't see anything."  
  
"You're not the only one," Clive said, off to his Northwest.  
  
"It's night," Storm said, due South of him. "But there's no stars."  
  
No stars, no moon, no ambient light from other sources. This wasn't Angel's only clue that things were wrong. "It's not night," he said, trying to see the blade of the axe he knew he was holding. As a vampire, he knew he had superior night vision, it just seemed slow in coming here. "It's darkness."  
  
"And you're not splitting semantical hairs?" Clive asked.  
  
Angel started to shake his head, then realized that Spider couldn't see him - not yet, anyways. "No. Vampire - creature of the night, remember? That's not just mythic ego inflating bullshit. I know night when I'm in it, and this isn't it. This is just the absence of light." The air felt weird too; thick and cloying, like they had entered an attic that had been locked up for years. His eyes were starting to adjust, and he was starting to see …. shapes, slightly darker than the rest of the blackness. None of the shapes were currently moving, but they didn't look promising either.   
  
"And night isn't the absence of light?" Piotr asked him, sounding doubtful.  
  
"It's more."  
  
"There's atmosphere here, one that I can use," Storm commented, as the wind picked up. Instead of freshening the air, it just pushed around the staleness.   
  
"Good," Spider said. "Maybe you can throw some light on the situation."  
  
"I intend to," she replied, and he could sense the wind kicking up a little harder. Lightning flickered between clouds, he saw the tendrils of energy reflecting off the blade of his axe, but it barely penetrated the raging gloom for even a millisecond; the darkness seemed to heal over it, like a living thing. And that's when he realized something he should have known right from the start.  
  
Angel stepped ten paces away from the other, and started chopping at the ground with the axe.  
  
He sliced through the air and brought the blade down solidly into the ground beneath their feet, each blow making a hollow thunk, like he was stabbing a thick, heavy melon with a hunting knife.  
  
"What the fuck are you doing?" Clive wondered, sounding annoyed. "It is you doing that, yes?"  
  
"Yes," Angel replied, never stopping his random chopping at the ground. More flashes of lightning briefly illuminated him for the others.  
  
"So what the fuck are you doing?"  
  
"What I am doing, Clive, is attacking the darkness," he told him, hefting the blade and describing a circle in the air before bringing the axe down again.  
  
What had Bob said? Gods created their own realms - but they didn't just create them. Quite often, the gods were the dimensions: they were quite literally part and parcel of the realm in which they dwelled. The internal made external, and vice versa. He couldn't kill whoever this was this way - or at least he didn't think so - but damn it, he could get their fucking attention.  
  
After all, this wasn't a normal axe, was it?  
  
"Is this some kind of vampire spaz out?" Spider continued, sounding more and more sarcastic.  
  
It was then that the darkness started to bleed away from the cracks he had made. It was odd, like a photo reverse of the dying process, the black pulling away and leaving a void of color, not unlike bleached bones. In the air, filaments of gray energy crackled from the "slices" he had made, causing the darkness to retreat in odd, diseased patches. But at least now they had something to see by.  
  
"Well, fuck me," Spider muttered, stunned. "It worked."  
  
"Believe it or not, I know what I'm doing." He buried the blade in the ground once more, now able to see it was a melted, grainy substance, not unlike granular cement. But before he could yank the axe from it, something like a massive electrical shock traveled through it, and Angel only felt the sharp, hot burst of energy before being thrown back violently through the air, flying like he was made of paper. He collided hard with someone and they both went down in a heap, the energy still coursing through his body and leaving him temporarily paralyzed.   
  
"Dead thing," a deep and deeply inhuman disembodied voice boomed. "Who allowed you to pollute my realm?!"  
  
As soon as he could talk, Angel admitted, "Okay, sometimes I don't know what I'm doing." He saw silver out of the corner of his eye, and as feeling started to come back to the rest of his body, he realized Piotr had gone metal and sort of caught him, or at least broke the worst of his fall. At least he knew metal guy wasn't hurt.  
  
As the sky and the ground continued to bleed light around them, the darkness coalesced into a rough approximation of a face above them. Sharply diamond shaped, and maybe twenty feet high and fifteen feet across, it was a face with empty eye sockets, no nose, and a mouth only visible when it "spoke", a gash of sky. "Who are you to attack Kalfu?" It demanded.  
  
"Who are you to attack us?" Storm shot back.  
  
Piotr said quietly to Spider, "For a moment, I swear he said tofu." Which certainly would have been scary enough.  
  
But Kalfu? It took him a moment, but he had a vague recollection … oh, shit. The only Kalfu he knew of was the Voudon (voodoo) spirit of the night, and the source of "all darkness". Very little was known about the "real" Kalfu, but by all accounts, the mythological assertion that he was very dangerous was dead on the mark. Shit, why hadn't Wesley come with them? He had no idea how to defeat Kalfu, if indeed Kalfu could be defeated. Would supernaturally enhanced mutant powers and Bob's axe be enough? Or would they simply be killing time until something more powerful showed up?  
  
Wisps of darkness fluttered on top of Kalfu's theoretical face like smoke from unseen chimneys. "Pathetic little Humans. Your realm was mine once; I'm simply reclaiming it."  
  
"It isn't yours to reclaim," Storm continued, obviously having no qualms about arguing with the big giant head. But then again, dollars to doughnuts, she had no idea who Kalfu was or what he could do. "Withdraw, and we will leave. But if you don't, you will be destroyed."  
  
"Bloody lovely," Spider grumbled under his breath. "We get the mutant leader with the" bombastic speech" gene."  
  
Angel climbed to his feet, still unsteady but feeling better than before, and gave Piotr a hand up. He was at least as heavy as Logan when he was in steel mode.  
  
The ground seemed to tremble beneath their feet, accompanied by the sound of an avalanche, rocks roaring down a distant hillside. It took Angel a moment to understand Kalfu was laughing at them. "You threaten me, in my realm? With nothing but a blade that stings and a dead thing? You are welcome to face me, creatures - as soon as you make it through my army."  
  
"What army?" Piotr asked, looking around the slowly growing circle of light.  
  
It was then that shapes began to form in the remaining darkness; of the darkness, humanoid shapes created of the same shadows that had been Kalfu's representative face. Dozens that kept growing, shadows splitting like amoebas, clones of clones of clones, until they were surrounded by a quickly encroaching army of shadow soldiers. The entire realm had altered itself into opponents. They were outnumbered a hundred to one.  
  
"Oh fuck," Spider said, taking it all in with a slack jaw.   
  
Yeah, that about summed it up.  
  
16  
  
Like Bobby hated rats and snakes, Wesley hated Berserkers.  
  
It wasn't just that he'd had nothing but bad experiences with them, although that was true (could there be a more naturally homicidal demon breed?): on top of that, they were as ugly as sin, hard to kill, and had all the personality of a starving badger on crank, after a three day coffee and acid binge. There was simply no reasoning with them, and while you attempted to do so, they pulled out your intestines and ate them, keeping you alive long enough to ask you where you kept the salsa.  
  
The heavy thudding footfalls and sounds of smashing quickly followed the first Berserkers dramatic entrance through the Southern side of the mansion, and even as he shouted to the charging Marcus, "Back of the neck! The only way to kill them is to drive something into the spot where their spinal column meets their brainstem!" he was startled to hear a voice in his mind, so much so he jumped.  
  
*What's going on?* Xavier's 'voice' demanded. *Is everyone all right?*  
  
There was no point in asking Xavier for his help here; the physical structure of Berserker brains was so different than any other humanoids, telepathy had never, to his knowledge, worked. *For the moment. Tell Amaranth if she can't be distracted long enough to transport our Berserker friends to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, then the least she can do is zap me a weapon up here. Machete, heavy duty crossbow, spear gun, javelin, sword, I don't care, just something I can stab them with.* He still had the gun Marcus gave him earlier, but considering how thick skinned Berserkers were (quite literally - they had about four layers of tough, overlapping scales), he'd have to get to point blank range if he wanted to even try and get a killing shot. Which meant hop up on their back and pump round after round into their neck, and hope none took a queer ricochet and blew his own head off. He was neither as suicidal or basically indestructible as Angel or Logan (the only two people he knew had ever successfully killed Berserkers - which probably meant Berserkers really hated their friends), so unless a golden opportunity actually presented itself, he couldn't see ever doing that.  
  
His heart was trip hammering in his chest, and for the first time in a while he had the sour taste of fear in the back of his throat. What kind of "demon hunter" was he when one of their breed caused an acute attack of phobia ? But then again, what kind of Human would he be if he didn't get scared sometimes? Everyone did, even in a profession such as this; you simply had to learn to work past it - and fast.   
  
"What the hell is a Berserker?" Brendan asked. All the kids were now out in the hall, looking towards the back of the mansion with trepidation and curious dread. "And don't tell me it's a Viking warrior wearing a bearskin, 'cause that screaming doesn't sound Norse to me."  
  
"It is a demon worse case scenario," he told them. He didn't want to scare them any further, but they deserved the truth. "They are big, fast killing machines that are virtually indestructible. "  
  
They all jumped as gunfire soon exploded down the corridor, and the annoyed roar of an insulted Berserker made the windows rattle in their frames. The trio of teens had paled, even Brendan, who was a lighter shade of green. "Except, uh … back of the neck, right?" Brendan squeaked, terror making his voice crack.  
  
He nodded, hoping he was giving them a reassuring look. It was hard to tell, since, in his own mind, he was hiding beneath a table. "Exactly. They also don't like fire, although I've never heard of it killing them."  
  
"Fire?" Rogue repeated, staring at him like he was crazy. "So whatta we do? Make torches?"  
  
At that moment, a crossbow full of titanium arrows and a gleaming scimitar popped into existence at his feet. *Hurry up* Amaranth sent, in her inevitably rude way. Still, she sounded quite distracted, and faint, especially compared to Xavier's previous transmission. *We're running out of time.*  
  
*I'm well aware of that* The scimitar had a leather strap on the handle, so he slipped that over his wrist while he picked up the crossbow and made sure it was ready to fire. Of course it was; at least she had time to do that much.  
  
As soon as he had done that, two things happened almost simultaneously. Marcus came flying through the hallway, slamming up against the far wall not twenty feet away, his shirt ripped open and his chest bleeding copiously. He couldn't tell on sight if he was conscious or not, but if he was bleeding, he was still alive.   
  
Then the front door exploded open behind them, making Rogue scream, as another Berserker thundered in. The seven foot, oversized nightmare paused to roar, opening its too large, lantern fish jaw wide, and no matter how scared he was, he acted on reflex - he fired an arrow down its throat.  
  
It wasn't going to kill it, or even slow it down, but it was an annoyance that made it pause, and attempt to pluck the arrow out with its long, claw like fingers. As that happened, Bobby raised an ice wall between them and the Berserker. It was a nice idea, but the Berk (ha!) would bust through it in a second, as soon as it wasn't preoccupied. What they needed was a wall of fire.  
  
Damn it - he should have requested a flamethrower. But then he may have burned the entire house down.  
  
The berserker that had taken a slice out of Marcus started pounding down the opposite end of the hall towards them, shouting in its gravelly, harsh voice, "Human meat, this is your doing! You will pay for what you've done!"  
  
What the hell was it talking about? It looked like it was bleeding thick black fluid from several perforations in its chest and face - Marc must have gotten some shots home - and he could smell the burning rubber/stagnant water odor of its blood, but it wasn't even slowing it down.  
  
"Is there any point in shooting it?" Rogue asked, her gun out, her hand shaking.  
  
"Why didn't anyone say they look like Aliens?" Brendan asked, sounding distressed at the prospect.  
  
"Not really," Wesley admitted, as its huge red eyes locked onto them. It growled, a sound like rocks sluicing down a metal chute, and Wesley told her, "I need cover. Go for the eyes."  
  
She nodded, and aimed and shot at its large eyes as he hit the wall and tried to get around the thing before it noticed him. But it wasn't good enough, as it slammed a hand against the wall barely two feet ahead of him, leaving a huge gaping hole and sending wood and plaster fragments flying into his face. He shot an arrow into its throat - from the wet sound and the angry snarl, it hit home - but before it could pick him up and toss him aside like a rag doll, Bobby froze over its eyeball, covering them with a thick crust of ice.  
  
Not only its eyes, but its whole head, a growing film of ice that threatened to cover its entire body.  
  
For a millisecond.  
  
Then it shook its massive frame, and the ice sloughed off like dead skin, flaking off like it had never been more than a fragile crust.   
  
He slung the crossbow onto his back and held the scimitar ready, trying to make an end run to get behind the thing, but he never made it. He saw black out of the corner of his eye, and felt impact, like a dump truck had slammed into him at seventy miles an hour.  
  
Wesley knew he'd blacked out going through the wall, and came to on the floor of an adjoining room, but not long afterwards, because pieces of the wall were still falling down.   
  
There was still shooting out in the hall, and Rogue was shouting something to someone when there was another boom, followed by the sound of something solid hitting the floor. He was willing to bet the ice wall had just fallen.  
  
Wesley forced himself to his feet, staggering and almost passing out, blood rushing from his head and his vision pixilating as he looked around for the crossbow. Oh well, at least the scimitar was still attached to his wrist. His chest ached, and he was pretty sure he had at least a couple of busted ribs.  
  
Blood dripped into his eye from a gash on his scalp as the floor shook with the tremendous thudding footsteps of two Berserkers moving in for the kill on the kids. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could take out one - he couldn't imagine the scenario where he could take out two.  
  
Could things get any worse? 


	8. Part 8

It was then that he heard the oddest noise. It was like a volcano with a smoker's hack, a roar that became a harsh rasping, a monstrous wet cough. It took Wesley a moment to realize it sounded like one of the Berserkers was choking on something. His first thought was he ate something that disagreed with it … oh shit!  
  
Fearing that someone had just gotten eaten, he stumbled out of the hole his sudden transit had made through the wall, ready to hack at any bit of Berk he saw.   
  
But the nearest Berserker, the one who must have sent him flying, was hunched over, coughing up something on the floor. At first he thought it was entrails, but they weren't colored right - also, they were moving.  
  
The Berserker was vomiting up snakes.  
  
Live snakes, that slithered across the floor after uncoiling, dripping with Berserker digestive juices but no worse the wear for it. Several became something over a dozen, colorful snakes raging from the size of shoestrings to ones the size of wizard's wands. He hardly recognized a one of them, and knew many - if not all - might not be native to this plane.  
  
They were Degei's avatar snakes - and they were attacking the Berserker from the inside out. If not eating it alive, then tearing it apart.   
  
So he had sent some help after all.  
  
The Berserker had collapsed to its knees, still either attempting to spit out all the snakes or forced to provide them an exit - either way, he was out of the fight. Wesley wiped the blood out of his eyes with the back of his hand, and looked towards the other end of the hall, where he had last seen the kids.  
  
There was a huge hole where the front door used to be, and chunks of melting ice all over the floor … but no kids, and no second Berserker.   
  
Fear caused adrenaline to dump into his system, making him feel more clear-headed and less pained, and he darted down the corridor, careful to avoid the ice and snakes, scimitar raised in attack position. "Rogue?" He called, wondering what the Berks had been after in the first place. Certainly the snake barfer couldn't tell him now. "Brendan? Bobby?"  
  
"Mister Price, you're alive?" Rogue asked, and he turned his head sharply towards the voice. It was Rogue, with Brendan and Bobby, all three of them crouched at the top of the staircase. She had her gun out, although her hands still shaking a bit, and Brendan was still in his Brachen form, while Bobby looked, by turns, startled and tired. "We thought … I mean, you're just a normal …"  
  
"It's all right," he told them, and it was. He was used to being the perceived "lightweight" in the field of the extraordinary. It was one of the first things you had to get used to as a Watcher; you cultivated a love of people constantly underestimating you. The stereotype was generally correct - it was usually the quiet ones you had to watch out for…well, until the preternatural ones snuck up on you and kicked your ass. "Where's the other Berserker?"  
  
"They got his attention and dragged him outside," Rogue told him.  
  
"They?"  
  
"The Sisters."  
  
"The -" For a moment, he almost asked, but then he understood exactly who Rogue was referring to. But it couldn't be … could it?  
  
He went to the door, and noticed viscous black blood on the front walk, pooled on the grass close to where the front door used to stand. And farther away from the house, on what passed for the front lawn, were two Berserkers fighting the Weird Sisters.  
  
Correction: they were attempting to fight the Weird Sisters, but they seemed to be hitting and running, frustrating the Berserkers by never quite standing still - and most vampires were faster than your average Berserker (less mass to drag around), so they were doing a good job of irritating them.  
  
Both the girls (How did one tell Beatrice and Belinda apart? Angel could, but then he only turned Belinda - perhaps vampires really could instantly identify their "progeny", no matter what) had what looked like long, thin wrought iron lances, and then he realized they looked like staves from a metal fence; the front gate of Xavier's, perhaps. That explained the blood near the entrance, they must have stabbed one to get her attention. But if they had the drop on a Berserker, why not just kill her?  
  
He heard their peals of laughter - in stereo, of course - as they both used the metal poles to vault upwards and slam both feet straight into the mouths of both Berserkers, a synchronized, acrobatic hit that made the Berserkers stagger back into each other, spitting teeth like reeling boxers. The girls simply rolled to the grass and ran around the Berserkers, retrieving each other's fence posts, "switching" partners.  
  
That's when Wesley knew, with a sick twist of his stomach, what the girls were doing. They were playing with the Berserkers, like a cat might play with a mouse. They could kill them at any time and they knew it - they wanted to have a bit of fun with them first. Bloody psychopaths. But he should be glad they were on their side, right?  
  
(Were they ever really on their side? How could you dare trust things such as the Zhuravleva Sisters?)  
  
This was bad news. As much as the Sisters were expertly playing with the Berserkers, if one decided to charge the house or get accidentally be knocked into it, they could bring it down. They had to stop playing and get rid of them. But since there was no talking to them, he realized he had to go out there and do it himself.  
  
Him, with broken ribs that sent electric shocks through his body every time he took a deep breath, a mouth that tasted of blood, and a head that was now throbbing like a bee sting. If he did stagger into that field of enraged Berserkers and bitch queen vampires, he'd be a smear on the grass in under two minutes. Shit. "Do you know the Weird Sisters?" He asked, still watching them play with their prey. Rogue had just said "The Sisters" so casually, it was like she was familiar with them.  
  
"Yeah. They, um, helped us - well, helped Bob - keep this, like, demon pain queen or something from crossing into this dimension. She was going to smoosh them all together or flip them or something," she explained, with a bizarre casualness. She was more accustomed to the unseen world than most of the adults around here. "Bob explained it, but I didn't always follow it. That's where he and Logan did that weird body switching thing - and you can't believe how funny it is to hear Logan speaking with an Australian accent."  
  
"Dis." Where Logan became Bob's unfortunate avatar. So she was there too, was she?  
  
"Yeah, that place. I still can't find that island on any map."  
  
"Why did Logan talk with an Australian accent?" Bobby asked her, sounding both confused and amused.  
  
"Well, it wasn't him. I mean, it was Bob, using Logan's vocal cords. And since Bob can't hear his own accent, he still had it, but his voice was deeper, like Logan's. Bob had Logan's accent - well, what little there is. But it was funny hearing Bob speak with no accent at all too."  
  
From the way the sky had become a dark, swirling vortex, he knew that time was winding down on him. He had to get downstairs and finish the ritual. The Sisters looked like they had the Berserkers well in hand, but could he very well leave things like this?  
  
That's when he heard Bobby curse under his breath "Shit," and looked down to see several jewel toned, multi-colored snakes slithering past him, out onto the lawn. They didn't bother him, they hardly seemed aware of him, as they motored easily past, gliding on the melted pools of ice in a colorful, silent procession of victors.  
  
"Snakes were takin' too goddamn long to finish the job," Marcus said, slumping against the ruins of the wall beside him. He tucked a hunting knife in the waistband of his pants, the blade still black with Berserker blood.  
  
Must have been an easy kill. Also, a mercy killing, considering the agony the Berserker must have been in.  
  
"Where did all those snakes come from?" Brendan asked, sounding creeped out.  
  
"Degei, right?" Marcus looked to him for confirmation. Wesley started to nod, but stopped, as it made him dizzy, and caused the pain to swell up inside his skull. "Man, snake gods are more dangerous than I thought."  
  
All gods were more dangerous than you thought, but, again, some more than others. Degei was obscure, and what little reputation he had was benign, but any entity that could partition its consciousness into a million trillion entities in uncountable dimensions and still keep a semblance of self must have been more powerful - and therefore potentially dangerous - than anyone could actually comprehend. He was obscure only because his culture had been swallowed by time; he was not obscure because he was weak.  
  
Marcus gestured to the psychotic fighting out front as he pulled out one of his larger handguns and popped out the empty ammunition clip, letting it fall to the floor with the rest of the detritus. "They on our side?"  
  
"It would seem that way," he said, hedging his bet. He took a good look at Marcus, and in spite of his almost automatic dexterity in reloading the gun, it was a minor miracle he was upright. His shirt and chest had been shredded by massive claws, and his jeans were almost black with his own blood, which was also continuing to trickle from his nose and the corner of his mouth. His protective goggles had been broken and cast aside, revealing eyes with pupils so large it looked like they took up the majority of the space, making him resemble a hybrid between a Human and an alien "gray". Wesley wondered if pupils looked bloated only when he was using his infrared vision, or if they looked that way all the time. Marcus had never clarified if he had normal vision that could go infrared, or if it was infrared all the time. "Perhaps you ought to sit down," he whispered quietly.  
  
Marcus looked at him with a raised eyebrow. His strange eyes were slightly glassy, probably from pain, and his own blood slicked the silver surface of his Glock. "The guy with the bloody face can't possibly be talking to me."  
  
"I know I look like shit," Wesley hissed in reply, hoping the kids couldn't hear them over the sadistic giggling of the Sisters and aggrieved roars of the Berserkers out front. "I feel like shit. But you're -" Probably dying, he thought, but could he actually say it? From this angle, it looked like there was blood in Marcus's ear canal. "- you're just as bad off, if not worse." After all, he'd only been thrown through a wall by a Berserker - he hadn't tried to fight them. He'd never gotten the chance.  
  
Marcus studied him for a moment, as if he knew what he really wanted to say, and was weighing a response to it. Finally, he said, "Isn't there somethin' you're supposed to be doing downstairs? Look, go, I'll hold the fort here. If any of those fugly Godzilla motherfuckers gets within twenty feet of the house, I'm gonna see if it can stand up after taking a dozen adamantium rounds in its leg. Think Berserkers can hop?"  
  
So that was how it was going to be, was it? Denial as a shield. "Marcus-"  
  
"I have a job to do," he snapped, an angry set to his jaw. "I'm gonna do it." Even if it killed him?  
  
Wesley sighed, and glanced up at the kids, to see if they were listening. He honestly couldn't tell; they had the same stark look that he knew as the 'freaked out by pretending not to be' face, eyes shining and jaws tense. Rogue's grip on the gun was so great it looked like it might shatter in her hand. They could have gone upstairs and hid, but none of them were moving.  
  
That's when he understood why Bob had pulled them into this, instead of relying solely on demons. It wasn't just that they were mutants with powers that might be useful - although surely that was a major factor - it was that they were all extraordinarily brave. If they were going to die, not a one of them would go without a fight. He was used to that in his friends, but he sometimes forgot other people could be capable of it as well.  
  
He slapped Marcus gently on the shoulder, and told him, "Don't let the kids invite them in unless it's absolutely necessary."  
  
Marcus nodded, looking out at the lawn. "So they're vamps, huh? Figured as much, to be that stupid."  
  
"I have to go."  
  
"Then go already. I ain't stopping you."  
  
He wanted to tell him it was good working with him, but that seemed to be acknowledging something neither really wanted to acknowledge. Besides, he might pull through; he was a mutant, and stranger things had happened.   
  
Wesley simply nodded and turned away, glancing up at the kids to tell them, "If things get bad, come downstairs. We can regroup and fight better from a less accessible position."  
  
They nodded, but they had a grim look that suggested they considered that the absolute last resort. "We'll do that," Rogue lied, bare knuckles turning white on the gun butt. (She had taken off her gloves? Anticipating disaster, perhaps.)  
  
But again he just nodded, sliding the scimitar loop off his wrist and leaving the blade on the bottom step, in case anyone wanted or needed it.  
  
He thought about telling Amaranth to throw a healing spell up here, but then he realized if he didn't finish the job he was supposed to do, there would be no one left to heal anyways; they'd be all dead.   
  
Marcus had the right idea. He had a job to do, and he was going to go do it, come Berserkers or the end of the world.  
  
17  
  
Xia had broken through the wall, but it was slow going.  
  
Each punch knocked out a chunk of wall, but the wall was impossibly thick, full of … well, whatever the material was, it was dense and chalk white, light but unbelievably strong. It was unlike any material he had ever seen before, and he was almost envious of it. Just think how impervious the mansion would be if it was made of this.  
  
"My wife, the irresistible force," Tom said, with obvious pride.  
  
Xia kept punching away in a single spot, so she was about half way through the wall (or so he guessed - how deep was it?), but she looked like she was getting tired. She didn't stop, though; she was the John Henry of wall punchers.  
  
Helga sniffed the chunk of wall he was holding, and he stepped back, away from her. "What the hell are you doing?"  
  
"Trying to identify that shit," she said, giving him a sharp look of irritation.  
  
"By smell?" He scoffed. "So what are you, Logan now?"  
  
Her glare had an almost physical impact. "I thought you two had called a truce. Is it off again 'cause an enemy of one of his friends made your girlfriend an avatar?"  
  
He glared back, but he knew it was wasted, as she probably couldn't tell. "He knew long before we were told, didn't he?"  
  
She shrugged. "I have no fucking idea; I ain't a mind reader. But I think I know what that shit is."  
  
She must have meant the stuff in the wall. "What?"  
  
"Super calcareous ossified deposits."  
  
It took him a moment to decide she wasn't making that up, and then another moment to recognize one of the words. "Ossified? As into make bone like?"  
  
"No, as in actual bones. I think it's the compressed bones of a million different things, supernaturally hardened into this."  
  
She was serious. He let out a small, strangled cry as he dropped the chunk he was holding and backed away, hastily brushing the dust off his hands on the side of his pants. It was people? A million people? "You couldn't have told me earlier?" He snapped.  
  
She just shrugged again, tail swinging back and forth like a metronome. "I wasn't sure until I smelled it."  
  
He just bet she was lying; about the first, the second, or all of it. She just seemed to live to torment him.  
  
"Hon, want me to take over?" Tom said to Xia, who had paused to catch her breath.  
  
"Think the structural integrity's been weakened enough?"  
  
He looked it over and nodded. "I think so. If not, at least it will make things easier to punch."  
  
Xia came out of the human sized hole she had punched (and kicked, and otherwise forced) into the wall, but Tom didn't more at all. He looked over his shoulder at them, and suggested, "You all might wanna get back, and maybe sit down. I'll keep the fissures away from you, but the ground may get kind of animated. I'll only push things as far as I have to."  
  
They all backed up several meters farther away from the wall - they hadn't been that close anyways - and Scott felt silly enough without sitting on the ground like they were waiting for a rocket launch. But Xia sat down, and so did Helga, and then he felt kind of silly standing up all by himself, so he relented and sat back down in the tall grass.  
  
Tom just remained standing where he was, back to them, and Scott saw nothing but Tom clench his hands at his side.  
  
And the ground began to shake.  
  
The sound seemed to roll in like a wave as the ground shook with growing violence. Scott would have sworn the ground beneath him no longer felt solid; it was gelatinous, soft and trembling, and the wall looked as it was starting to sway, ever so slightly. How was Tom staying on his feet?  
  
What a stupid question. It was his power, that's how. Until now, he thought it was a strangely limited power - cause earthquakes. Woo. Whoever thought that was good for combat? But of course it was. If you could drop buildings on your opponents, turn the ground beneath their feet uncertain and hostile, it was a devastating weapon indeed. Not to mention the fact that it technically made Tom a weapon of mass destruction, because limiting the damage with his ability might prove difficult. Scott knew the feeling well.  
  
Just about at the point that he could feel the fillings vibrating in his teeth, the wall started to crumble where Xia had made an access point, but it seemed achingly slow. Scott was on the verge of yelling at him to stop (he could swear he could feel his brains sloshing up against his skull) when finally cracks appeared in the wall, black on the bleached bone white, snaking out from the Xia sized hole and slowly spreading out in all directions, heading North, South, East, and West, and every direction in-between.  
  
Once the cracks had reached the top, once the veins of it had spread wide enough that the cracks made the wall a sort of mosaic, it started to fall away in chunks, but only where Xia had damaged it. The wall started to fall in at its weakest point.   
  
Scott didn't know how it could keep resisting so hard. The ground was rolling like the ocean, starting to fissure, but as Tom had promised, it wasn't breaking anywhere near them. He wondered how hard Tom could push it - could he break the tectonic plates or whatever might beneath this foreign soil? Right now, it felt like he could. Scott also felt like he might get sea sick.  
  
They all heard the "snap", like the brutal cracking of the spine of the world, and the wall collapsed into itself, right where Xia had made the dent.   
  
Finally, Tom slowed the violent shifting of the ground to a shiver, and looked over his shoulder to face them. "See? Easy as pie," he claimed, panting as if short of breath, his eyes filmed over completely with a white fog. Just like Storm. Wasn't that a little creepy?  
  
"That's one hell of a ride," Helga said as she stood up. "You could make a mint renting yourself out for parties."  
  
As the fog cleared, and his normal eyes reappeared, he grimaced at her. "Oh joy. Hollywood, here I come."  
  
"They'd hate you in Hollywood," Helga replied. "They get skittish about earthquakes on the coast."  
  
"Damn. There goes my sitcom."  
  
"Quake and Bake?" Xia said as she got up, joining in the fun. "The mutant chef who accidentally collapses his own soufflés when people get him angry?"  
  
Tom threw back his head and laughed, beads of sweat sliding down his face. Xia came up to him and clapped him on the shoulder before adding, "We can make a cool million endorsing cookware. We'll be set for life."  
  
"Hate to break up the chuckle fest," Scott said, getting to his feet and heading towards the new opening in the wall. "But we're here about the end of the world, remember?" He swallowed down the sense of nausea as best he could, but it felt like the earthquake was still going on in his stomach. The muscles in his legs seemed to think the ground was still shaking too.  
  
"Stiff Boy is right," Helga agreed. "We gotta get this thing done. We've spent enough time dicking around."  
  
"Stiff Boy?" He repeated bitterly. Debris blocked the way through the hole, and he shot out a brief, narrow beam from his visor, blasting it out of the way. "What the hell's that … oh, forget it." It actually occurred to him to say "That means a lot coming from the green slut," but even he was appalled at the inherent nastiness and bitchiness of that potential comment. It was also possible Helga might try and kill him if he said that, and the team was barely a cohesive unit as it was. So he simply said, "Can the stupid nicknames."  
  
He went through the hole made in the broken wall first, not bothering to see if the others were following, and once he made his way past the broken wall, he got clear and looked around him.  
  
It was truly disorienting. He was in a huge circular courtyard, and the sky looked … lower here; larger, more intensely blue, the castle seemed even larger and more gothic, while the courtyard itself was made of something hard and heavy, and as violently red as spilled blood. How had the courtyard not cracked under the strain?  
  
He thought it was just his eyes at first, that they were still responding to the earthquake, but that made no sense. It wasn't an optical illusion. The red stuff was moving under the plaza. Swirling and pulsing like … like blood in a body.  
  
Okay, now he was going to get sick.  
  
"What the hell did we just break into?" He asked Helga, as she was the second one through the gap.   
  
She looked around, tail flicking impatiently, and then looked down to see what was beneath their feet. "Oh, cool."  
  
"Oh wow, isn't that trippy?" Tom commented upon seeing it. "It's like a dance floor in a rave club."  
  
"Are we actually standing over a heart?" Xia asked, sounding just as freaked out as Scott felt.  
  
"Something like that," a familiar voice said, and Scott looked up so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. He still couldn't believe what he was seeing.   
  
"Jean?" He gasped, feeling like he had been hit with a lightning bolt to the chest.  
  
She was standing in front of the castle entrance, her eyes as red as the blood pulsing beneath them, and wisps of the same red energy trailing into the air from the corner of her mouth.   
  
Helga didn't gasp more than she just sucked in a hard breath. "Collin? So we've been sent to a hell dimension, huh?"  
  
"That would explain it," Tom said weakly. He looked pale and almost sickly. "I don't even know the names of these people."  
  
"What people?" Helga asked.  
  
"The villagers of Tierra Verde."  
  
Scott didn't know who or where that was, but he almost didn't want to know. Just the way he said it suggested it was something bad.   
  
"Okay. We're all seeing dead people-" Helga began.  
  
Xia gasped, and grabbed Tom's arm, as if seeking protection. "Logan? Wh-what are you doing here?"  
  
"Correction," Helga immediately amended. "We're seeing the people that haunt us."  
  
"In multiples," Scott agreed, his heart starting to kick down into a more normal rhythm as he realized this couldn't be real. There were now several red eyed Jeans, joined with several red eyed Cressidas. But now he could see what everyone else must have been seeing: several male versions of Helga, muscular green men without tails (only the females of her species had tails, or was he just some kind of hybrid?); many Hispanic people, some children; and several Logans, claws sprung and reflecting the throbbing, sanguineous light from below. All had red eyes, and red energy trailing from their mouths like smoke. It was an army of imperfect ghosts; the demonic personification of regret.  
  
(Why was Xia haunted by Logan? Wasn't that curious …)  
  
It was then that a woman appeared before the strange guilt army. A woman as clear and blue as the sky above, her strapless dress and long hair both like swatches of night, deep black with faintly twinkling stars within. Her eyes were as yellow and bright as the sun. In fact, they were suns in miniature, one in each socket. "Dear little creatures, you have finally freed me from my imposed exile," she said, her voice surrounding them somehow, as if it was actually coming from above.  
  
(She was the sky. It made no fucking sense at all, but she was somehow the sky.)  
  
"What?" Helga exclaimed, speaking for all of them. "You're attacking our dimension."  
  
The woman put a blue hand (Hey, did he just see a cloud on her palm?) on the shoulder of the red eyed Jean clone beside her, indicating they were at least solid to her. "My dear, dear followers have been trying to punch through to your flawed little plane. But they could never free me from this prison. Some gods just have no sense of humor. But you have, and I thank you for it."  
  
"I think we just made a major tactical error," Scott told the others quietly. But why were they sent to this place if not to stop this, if not to bust in and bring this down? Would it have killed Bob to give them a tactical briefing?! If they ever made it out of here, he was going to blast that Aussie bastard into next year.  
  
The woman made of sky fixed her blind gaze on him, and oddly enough, it did feel warm. "You take the gratitude of Ereshkigal so lightly? But yes, you would. Your kind have forgotten about me, haven't you?"  
  
"Is this where you give us your biography? Can you make it the A & E version? 'Cause we don't have a lot of time here." As Helga said this, Scott noticed her tail reaching into the back of her own low slung jeans. Going for a weapon? What weapon was of use against the sky?  
  
Ereshkigal's eyes narrowed while the suns flared, like they were on the verge of going nova. "Impudent demon. Do you think the blessing of Moros is enough to protect you from me? Have you no idea where you are? This is the Big Land, also known as the Underworld, from which no one ever returns. Only the dead reside here, the things that have passed and become shade; nothing living has ever come here, and nothing living has ever left." She smiled then, and its coldness was not diminished by the sunlight bleeding through her teeth. "You will be no exception."  
  
"Wanna bet on that, sweetheart?" Helga replied, her tail tossing the oddly shaped gun into her waiting hand, and it had barely landed in her palm before she fired it. It made an odd noise, a muffled kind of "poomf", and from what little Scott could see, it didn't shoot a bullet. Or at least not traditional ones - they weren't black.  
  
The projectile seemed to hit Ereshkigal hard, and as she fell back into the waiting arms of one of the Tierra Verde villagers, the rest of the dead swarmed them as a single entity, screaming and roaring, glowing with red energy like fire.  
  
Scott started shooting out beams, and tried to hit as many as possible at once, doing his best to ignore the aching in his chest every time he hit one that looked like Jean. This looked like a no win scenario, but hell, he'd been in them before, hadn't he?  
  
(Why did they have to look like Jean?)  
  
None of this made sense, and he had a nagging feeling that Bob had set them up. But Scott decided he would worry about that later, if he was alive to do so, and they ever found a way out of here. If they were going to die, fine, but he was going to take as many of them with him as he could on his way out.  
  
And that was his final thought before the dead took them all down. 


	9. Part 9

18  
  
Xavier felt Wesley's pain long before he came in the door.  
  
Having only sensed him over the phone before, when he called to speak to Logan, he knew he was a quiet but intense man, intelligent but much darker than he ever let on. He was as calm as he always seemed, but he was always thinking, and he had a strange knee jerk tendency towards violence. But Angel wasn't lying when he had said he'd been fighting the supernatural all his life; certainly he'd been trained all his life, to the point where much of his reflexive reactions were those he was taught. Subtle brainwashing.  
  
But it wasn't all rote. He was extremely driven, almost frighteningly so. Case in point: despite hurting, and being aware of the general seriousness of his injuries, as soon as he reached the lab, he slapped a butterfly bandage on the gash on his scalp, solely so the blood wouldn't drip in his eyes while he worked, and then took some synthetic adrenaline from his "magic kit" and injected it into his own thigh. He knew, even if he wasn't off on dosage, he could give himself a heart attack, but the drug would make him less aware of the pain, keep him sharper, keep him focused. It might thin his blood and make the bleeding greater, hence the bandage on his head.  
  
As frightening as the automatic disregard for his own health was, at least he had been upstairs trying to stop the destruction. Xavier knew what was going on - he could feel the fear, the pain, and even feel the heavy footsteps of the invaders vibrating through the walls. But could he do a damn thing about it? He couldn't even get a sense of the attackers; they were telepathically blind to him, their brains far too alien for him to even sense at any level. It was troublesome, almost as much as what he was going to do.  
  
Once the odd rituals began, Wesley assured him he didn't actually have to believe in any of it for it to work, which was certainly a relief, but he still felt silly having a spell cast on him, not to mention having something painted on his forehead. What was this, a carnival?  
  
The "paint" they used smelled like swamp water full of aluminum salts, and tingled a bit. The symbol painted on his head was merely a triangle inside a circle, with a small like a blotch inside the triangle. It was suppose to repel any god who wanted to make direct contact with his mind - an odd thought if there was ever one. Wesley had warned him several times that no Human had made direct contact with god energy and survived, certainly no telepath. And he offered to take his place.  
  
He was no telepath, but Wesley was pretty sure he could induce possession of himself by a demon capable of telepathy, and through that do what they were asking him to do. The idea was horrendous - there was no way in hell he'd allow anyone to do such a thing to spare him - but Wesley had been deadly serious. If he had balked, he'd have done it, even if it meant he'd never regain control over his own body. That was Wesley's frightening intensity and darkness, rearing its ugly head.  
  
It did explain how he could be friends with Logan. Logan didn't make friends easily, and the few times he encountered Wesley over the phone, he sounded calm and laid back, the picture of stereotypical English reserve. And while he seemed that way in person too, it was clear that most of that reserve was actually steely resolve. He had witness much horror - figurative and literal - and he had all but sacrificed his life to put a stop to it. There was little half measures in anything Wesley did, and that made him a natural to get along with Logan; Logan wasn't known for his half measures either. If you engaged in any sort of moderation, it made being friends with Logan somewhat difficult.  
  
It had occurred to him that Wesley would actually make an excellent team member. No, he wasn't a mutant, but he was certainly knowledgeable about many things that were obscure to them, and he was obviously resourceful and if not completely fearless, then extremely hard to unnerve. And Xavier would have to admit he'd love to see what class he would teach if he could set him up as a teacher, as well as the fact that he was one of the rare normals who didn't recoil in horror at the idea of mutants - why would he? He'd been around the inexplicable all his life. His mind just broke things into the categories of Humans and Demons, and the sub-categories were simply 'good, bad, neutral, could go either way depending on motivation', and that was pretty much it. Yet he was obviously more than happy where he was, even though he still internally winced when he said he worked for Wolfram and Hart. It still would have been nice to show the kids that there were normals out there like him. And his intellect would have been an asset in itself.  
  
  
  
Cerebro was as prepared and reinforced as it was ever going to be, and so was he. It was thought - hoped - that the machine interface would be another level of protection, beyond spells and amulets, and whatever they had in store for him. He had done most of his interacting with Wesley, as Amaranth was off in her own section of the lab, holding everything together in a distressingly literal sense .All he could sense from her was power, somewhat like her grandfather, and yet not exactly like it at all.  
  
He turned his chair around to face Wesley as the doors to Cerebro slid open. Wesley had put on his poker face, and looked like he was not only not in pain, but somewhat bored. Even if you ignored the bandage on his head, it was hard to ignore the sweat trailing from his neck, or the dilation of his pupils. But his hands were steady as he carried the small lead box inside. "Are you sure you're ready for this?" He asked.  
  
It was all Xavier could do not to laugh. He was concerned about him, when he himself just got thrown through a wall upstairs? "I'm as ready as I'll ever be. How will this work?"  
  
Wesley came out farther on the catwalk, and opened the lid of the box. There was nothing in it but something that looked like a small, rock encrusted skull, but it was unlike any skull he had ever seen. It could have been the skull of an infant Human, but there were three eye sockets,   
  
and the jaw was oddly lengthened, and held several small, sharp teeth. It looked like a strange hybrid between human and shrew, and it seemed to glow with a sickly green inner light. Wesley had told him it was the skull of Forlescioni, a highly prized object in black magic circles. But Xavier hadn't asked why, and Wesley had not volunteered it. Honestly, he didn't want to know its history; it felt wrong, and it smelled like blood, even though there wasn't a drop to be found on it. (On Wesley, yes, but that was a different smell.) "There's a protection spell cloaking this from the notice of most beings, but anything at a god level of power will sense it. It will, to a degree, throw an aura of protection around you. Hopefully, it's the bait we need. If not, we'll go to plan B."  
  
"Which is..?"  
  
"Still in development stages," he admitted with a grimace. "Let's see what happens with this."  
  
Not exactly inspiring, but he could understand. When did anyone have time to plan anything? This was all being done on the fly. If they had time, perhaps they could have prevented all of this in the first place. Xavier nodded, and glanced at the box. "Where does it go?"  
  
"As close to you as possible. Perhaps on an unobtrusive part of the console?"  
  
He wheeled his chair back into position, in front of the control panel of Cerebro, and let Wesley place it where he thought it was best. The box was small and didn't take up much room, but it radiated evil like an indefinable odor. Perhaps it was "contained" for now, but the sooner it was gone, the better. "I'll be outside," Wesley told him. Needlessly - he already knew that.  
  
He just nodded, and asked, "How are things upstairs?"  
  
As if on cue, blood started to trickle from beneath his soaked bandage, but Wesley tilted his head so it wouldn't fall into his eyes. "Not well, but not critical either, not anymore. Timely intervention by one of Bob's fellow gods helped avert disaster. Marcus is keeping an eye on things."  
  
Xavier caught the thought he didn't voice - "For now," - but he knew better than to comment on it. Besides, he could sense Marcus's pain from here, but all along with that pain was a fiery and resentful anger, that - if he was anything like Logan (and he must have been) - would feed him and keep him going. The desire to make someone pay was a sadly common Human response, but it might just keep him alive. It might have to.  
  
"I'll do my best here," Xavier told him, picking up his Cerebro interface.   
  
"All we can ask," Wesley replied, taking that as his cue to leave. But at the door, he paused, and added solemnly, "Good luck."  
  
With all these Ganesha pendants about, it was almost a joke, but he knew Wesley was serious. "To you as well," he said, and waited until Wesley was clear of the doors before putting on the interface, which he knew Scott thought of casually as his "helmet".  
  
Now they were all going to find out if Cerebro could help him get in contact with Jean or not, and if either of them could survive the experience.  
  
19  
  
Beating the shit out of the Hierophant wasn't nearly as satisfying as it should have been.  
  
Or sure, it was fun for a minute, but without access to his magic he was castrated, about as harmless as a door off its hinges. Bob certainly had no problem tapping into the "power conduit" in his mind, which led them to here. Wherever here was.  
  
What it was was obvious: a crystal palace. And not just any old palace either; this place was fucking massive. He hadn't seen the outside since they materialized within the foyer, but the arched, cathedral ceiling was about a hundred feet above them, and the walls easily eighty feet apart. Adding to the impression of space was a lack of furniture. And what there was of it seemed to be made of the same translucent, ice like crystal as the rest of the place. The only way he could actually see them at all was the flickers of multicolored lights that seemed to race through the walls and the floors at irregular intervals, like fragments of an aurora borealis being used as bullets. He wondered what the hell the lights were supposed to mean, regardless of all this crystal.  
  
"This could be Donald Trump's, but I haven't seen his name anywhere, so it can't be," Yasha commented, looking around.  
  
They followed Bob down the glass hall, their footsteps barely making any noise at all, which was truly odd since their voices seemed to echo no matter how quiet they spoke. "This is the home realm of Neb-er-tcher," Bob told them.  
  
"Did you just clear your throat?" Logan asked. That could not be a real name.  
  
Bob shook his head, like he feared he might. "It means "lord to the utmost limit" - in other words, Lord of the Universe."  
  
"You're shitting us," Yasha instantly replied, exchanging a nervous glance with Logan. If he wasn't, what did that fucking mean?  
  
"Sadly, no. Now understand that's just the p.r. spin - reality is always a bit different. He doesn't rule the entire universe; nobody can deal with that kind of paperwork. Besides, gods are as territorial as dogs - everybody needs a tree to piss on, or there's hell to pay."  
  
Logan never wanted the mental image of a god taking a leak on a tree, and yet there it was. Somehow he bet that image wouldn't make it to the 700 Club fundraiser collector plates. "But I'm guessing he's really powerful." He now looked around with greater suspicion, and tried to track one of those prismatic bullets within the wall, but they just moved too damn fast. They were more an impression of color than anything truly tangible.   
  
"Yes, quite. Let me tell you a story that no Human has ever been aware of. Now, don't tell anybody, 'cause the Powers That Be may make me bend over and assume the position just for telling you as it is. Now, in myth, it's a title that was given to Osiris after he supposedly put himself back together after Seth hacked him to pieces. That isn't true. I don't think Seth ever laid a hand on his brother, even though he was an unbelievably vicious bastard, although it is pitifully true you can't kill Osiris - death gods are almost impossible to kill. It can be done in theory, but it is so fucking hard you'd never believe it.   
  
"Anyhoo, Neb-er-tcher is a real thing, that really existed for a bit, until it was determined erasure was necessary. See, Nebby was an experiment that - in the classic way of these things - went horribly wrong."  
  
"Are you gonna tell us he's a god version of a Frankenstein?" Logan said this with a tacit warning in his voice. If he said that, he would slug him.  
  
"No, more of a god hybrid."  
  
""Hybrid?" Yasha repeated. Logan envied her ability to keep her voice completely neutral. "Hybrid with what? Demon? Human?"  
  
"Power That Be."  
  
Both he and Yasha stopped in their tracks, but Bob kept walking. Finally he paused, and looked back at them curiously. "Problem with that concept?"  
  
"A god is not a Power That Be's … is…whatever the fuck?" Logan struggled to ask.  
  
"Well … not exactly. It's a kind of semantical difference."  
  
"If it was just semantical, there'd be no such thing as a hybrid," Yasha pointed out.  
  
"Let's just say that they're both mostly energy based beings, but on different frequencies. The thing is, the PTB's thought it might be an interesting experiment to see what life among certain gods were like - especially since they had reasonable suspicions that some other gods were scheming against them. So they created Nebby as both a solution and a test."  
  
"Let me guess," Logan sighed, anticipating the rest of this story. "He went insane, and they sent him away, like they did Lucifer."  
  
"No, he was just a complete dick. He was shifted off to a side dimension so he couldn't bother them or their dimensions anymore, and they locked him in a time loop to make sure he never bugged 'em again. You know they don't like to kill their own kind; that's something Lower beings do." He then turned and started walking down the seemingly endless glass corridor again. They had no choice but to follow him.  
  
When you had Bob, who needed hallucinogenic drugs? "Time loop?" Logan suppressed the urge to add "…like a Froot Loop?" because then he'd just be a deliberate smart ass, just like Bob.  
  
"A Moebius strip of time. He's been living the same day over and over again for centuries, and he doesn't know it."  
  
"I don't care how dumb he is - after the first twenty years, it has to occur to him that the same thing happens every day," Yasha replied.  
  
Bob held up his finger - not the middle one - as if about to make a startling point. "Ah, are you thinking of lame comedies where time goes over and over until someone gets something right? Sorry to shatter the Hollywood illusion, but when time repeats, a small section isn't exempt. It all repeats."  
  
A bit of poser, but Logan attempted to take a stab at what he was attempting to convey. "Are you saying his memory is wiped clean? Or his thought patterns repeat themselves?"  
  
"Bingo! A stuffed koala for the hairy guy. Yes, his thought patterns repeat, and he has no memory of having had them before - how could he? There's no time to remember. He's always starting over with the same slate, he's not aging, he's not anything - he just is, existing in a perfect bubble of time that he is completely oblivious to."  
  
"Until now?" Only the slight lilt in her voice indicated it was a question.   
  
"Well, until recently. There was a dimensional breach that cut across not only the Earth plane, but was large enough to destabilize the regions between - of which, this is one."  
  
"The chaos wave?" Logan commented. It sounded like a question, but really he was just looking for confirmation.   
  
"But isn't that part of the attack on the Earth plane?" Yasha asked, giving him a curious look.  
  
"And this time, the pretty lady wins a stuffed panda," Bob said, giving her the thumbs up sign over his shoulder. "The destabilization was the catalyst for all of this; it was the hit that sent all these dominoes falling down, that opened up the dimension to a cascade attack."  
  
"So what caused the destabilization?" Logan demanded, wondering why everything with Bob had to be so fucking complicated. "Do you know?"  
  
"I do, but trust me, you don't want to hear it."  
  
"Why the fuck wouldn't I want to hear it? I do, so fucking tell me, if you actually know."  
  
Bob sighed heavily, shoulders slumping, and said, "Fine. It was Jean."  
  
Logan alone stopped walking. But when she realized he had, Yasha stopped too, raising an eyebrow at him. Bob kept on walking, like this really wasn't something he wanted to deal with. "What the fuck d'ya mean it was Jean?" He snapped, glaring at his back. (For all the good it would do ...)  
  
"She has Cammy's energy signature." Bob finally stopped again, but he only turned part ways towards him, as if afraid to commit any farther. "So when she manifested on the Earth plane - to rescue you - the universal fabric responded as if Cammy himself had come back. Did I ever tell you he was kinda shown the door out of here? He freaked out the other gods, but eventually pissed off one more powerful than him. It was a "Here's your hat, what's your hurry?" kind of situation."  
  
"Meaning what? The Earth plane was booby trapped if his energy ever registered again?"  
  
Bob briefly nodded his head from side to side, as if the thoughts sloshing in his brain were heavy enough to threaten his balance. "Something like that."  
  
Logan threw up his hands and rolled his eyes. Un-fucking-believable. "And you didn't share this information?!"  
  
"I didn't know about it," Bob protested. "This was a bit before my time, okay? And Cammy was never the most forthcoming of my associates. Maybe he didn't even know - I rather suspect he didn't."  
  
"So you're saying Jean can never come back without causing the end of the world?"  
  
"No. I assume the energy signature will differentiate - she's in the driver's seat now, after all - and now that I know about the dimensional bomb I can defuse it. She can come back ... I'm just not sure it's wise."  
  
Bob started to turn away again, but Logan quickly said, "Oh no you don't, you're not getting away with that, asshole. Why the fuck don't you think it's wise?"  
  
He sighed, as if Logan was asking him to juggle the moons of Saturn. "Look, she has his energy - she'll attract his enemies, and he's got quite a few. Jeeze, I wonder why; you'd think a bloodthirsty, power hungry war god would be Mr. Personality. And then there's the fact that Humans and god energy have never mixed well. That is part of the reason Humans don't make good avatars. Present company excepted, of course, but you're a pretty unique case."  
  
He snorted derisively. "'Cause ya can't kill me? Camaxtli didn't kill Jean either."  
  
"No, Logan. You're a unique case because the power doesn't corrupt you. My gods, man: you have the power of ultimate destruction at your fingertips - and you don't want it. I can't take it away from you fast enough."  
  
Logan had no idea why, but that statement was startling. What was that supposed to mean? Bob must have seen the confusion in his mind, because his eyes softened, his look turning oddly sympathetic. "You've lived with the power to destroy people for a very long time, mate, probably longer than you will ever realize. And you don't want it anymore. That makes you more special than any mutation."  
  
He almost asked him what he meant by that, but suddenly he didn't want to know. He didn't want to hear this, and he didn't want to see the pity on Bob's pretty boy face.  
  
('So how many people have you killed, Logan? Can you even begin to guess, you psychopathic sack of shit?')  
  
"Shut up," he snapped, but he really didn't know if it was aimed at Bob or the thoughts in his own head, or both. Maybe the only positive side to his memory loss was that he would never know his exact, personal body count.   
  
Bob just shrugged, as if that was fair, and started walking again. "It's not a bad thing, mate. I wish you didn't think it was."  
  
"You can't corrupt that which has already been thoroughly corrupted," Logan muttered, more to himself than Bob. That's what Bob was really telling him, whether he'd admit it or not.  
  
But Yasha came up beside him and slipped her arm into his. His first instinct was to yank his arm away, but he managed to tamp down the impulse. He had so few friends, he might as well keep the ones he had. "Before things get heavy," she whispered, doing her best to keep this between them. "I wanted you to know, no matter what, it's not your fault."  
  
He stared at her curiously, wondering what she was talking about. His assassin past? Jean? Bob? "What?"  
  
"If something happens to me - doubtful, since I'm working under a vengeance god, but you never know - I don't want you blaming yourself. It is my decision to be here and make these choices, and no man - especially a Hu-man - is going to take that away from me."  
  
He blinked rapidly, trying to assimilate this, wondering what brought this on. "Why are you telling me this? What do you know?"  
  
"I know you," she said, her eyes steady on his. Ever since she'd been working under the aegis of Ammit, she had a bright filament of scarlet energy surrounding her deep black pupils. "I see that flash of guilt in your eyes every time Jean is mentioned. I never want to be that, Logan; I never want to be another reason for you to beat yourself up. Is that clear? Because, trust me - you die, I'm not taking it personally."  
  
He scowled at her for that, but it soon gave way to a small smile. God, he loved these tough women. He had no idea why, but he liked ones who were willing to kick his ass, whether they actually could or not. "You're a stone cold woman," he replied, struggling to keep it deadpan.  
  
She gave her hair a bit of a model flip as she turned away. "Don't I know it, Romeo. They don't call me Lady Blood 'cause I drink it."  
  
"But you do."  
  
"Yes, well, the name works on many levels." She flashed him a toothy grin as she started to pull him along, up the corridor, and he couldn't help but chuckle. The sound echoed in this oddly eternal hall, and when it bounced back to his ears it sounded foreign, like a noise from another life.  
  
But it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad at all.  
  
20  
  
When he had time to think, Angel tried to figure out how many seemingly hopeless battles he had been in his life. Until now, he hadn't realized he'd made a minor career of it.  
  
Clearly out a nest of vampires or marrow suckers was just never a big deal - after all, no matter how many there were, they were usually punks or poseurs anyways, the kind of puffed up, self-aggrandized assholes he could take out en masse while sleepwalking. No, he was thinking of these various apocalypses he had averted over the years; many with Buffy, some not, and he was pretty sure Angelus had actually stopped at least one (mostly out of spite - if there was going to be an end to everything, only he would bring it about, no one else). It was like stopping the end of the world had become some kind of perverse hobby for him, and he didn't know what to do about it. It wasn't like he could let the world end because he was tired of getting in these massive, harrowing battles, but … would it have killed all encompassing evil to just take a vacation sometime? Maybe go to Tahiti, get a suntan, just knock it off with the terrorizing and the killing for once?  
  
Oh man, he must have taken a harder blow to the head than he thought.  
  
Storm's idea to blow away all the shadow soldiers was completely sound at first, but of course it wasn't going to be that simple. The shadows shifted shape into something like bats, and rode the wind until they became something akin to a hurricane of razor blades. They couldn't be "blown away" either. But lightning seem to fry them, which was a good thing, although the end result was a stench like acetate and singed hair.  
  
The axe, tainted with Bob's blood, seemed to be bad news for all of them, much like it was for the sky and the ground. Therefore, they kept trying to divest him of it, swarming him, trying to get his legs out from under him, risky suicide moves that would pay off if they accomplished their goal. The others tried to watch his back, but he was making some wild swings, and had come inadvertently close to hurting them with the blade. So, sensibly, Spider and Storm had tried to pull the battle farther away from him, but at the same time, Piotr remained, smashing and punching the shadow soldiers and not worrying about the axe, because now that he was all metal, the worst contact could do was cause a spit of sparks when metal hit metal. (And the shadows didn't like sparks either.)  
  
For the most part, the shadows were only partially corporeal, which added to the challenge of trying to keep these faceless minions down. But when they hit you in one massive wave, they were as corporeal as a goddamn brick wall, which is why head ached like a bruise. He didn't stay on his knees for long though; he couldn't afford to - none of them could afford to. There were too many of these things - like an endless road, the horizon always seemed a steady distance away from them, no matter how far they went - and it seemed like they were fighting for nothing more than a stalemate; running to stand still. Kalfu himself had disappeared once the battle had started (well, at least in a tangible form - Angel was sure he was directing the entire battle), and although what he could see of this dimension was growing thanks to his magical axe (wasn't that the name of a porno fantasy movie playing on Sunset?), it was still oddly undefined, like a two dimensional drawing of a world; nothing real, nothing true. It was almost as disorienting as the wave after wave of shadows - you expected something you could see and touch; you expected the world to be as complete as you were. But Kalfu's universe was like a complete afterthought; he needed nothing more than darkness given form to sustain him, so that was all there was here.  
  
Angel always thought Bob as a god was bad, and he still was in his estimation. But now he had found something worse: A god with no imagination or desire at all was a hollow, dead thing. No, he was a dead thing, and he knew he had desires, and hoped he had some imagination; calling Kalfu dead was an insult to the dead. Kalfu was just … empty. A void within a frame. The abyss, personified.   
  
And even when his own cold blood started to trickle down his face, Angel kept fighting, because he couldn't think of anything worse than dying (for good) in this place, and belonging to this shell of a god.   
  
He felt like his arms were about to be ripped from their sockets (the axe seemed to grow heavier the more he used it) when the shadows suddenly stopped; they disappeared into themselves, and they were left alone on the partially illuminated, badly formed plane, panting and sweating, exhausted but stinking of adrenaline. Everybody was cut and bleeding (even Piotr, whose metal had been cut by those things; it was odd to see metal bleed), and everybody was looking around, sharp eyed and paranoid. "What just happened?" Spider asked. "Did we win?"  
  
"I don't see how," Storm admitted warily.  
  
Everyone backed up until they made a back to back quartet, the safest way to be. "No way, it's a trick," Angel insisted, wanting desperately to be wrong, but sure he wasn't. "The shock troops weren't working, so now he's going to pull out the big guns." It was a small miracle that none of them were seriously injured or killed, but he had a feeling no one wanted to die, whether it was here or not. They were pretty good fighters, all in all. Not his usual crew, but not bad.  
  
"What are the big guns?" Storm asked.  
  
Angel shook his head, and hefted up his axe, ready to swing at the first aberrant movement that caught his eye. He really didn't know, but in a place as soulless as this, it could only be truly hideous.  
  
Oddly enough, Angel was sure if Kalfu had any semblance of imagination, it would come forth now. 


	10. Part 10

21  
  
At first, it was like a hot spot in the corner of his vision. This orange red point that wasn't more mutant than not, and yet something else entirely, and never quite settling where it should have.  
  
Xavier already felt a dull pain somewhere in the back of his mind, having to reach out this far, but it was ignorable … for now. He didn't know how long that would be true.  
  
The energy of the skull - or the rite cast on the skull, or however that worked - must have been acting like the "flare" it was supposed to, as he got a sense of some other movement in the corner of his vision, but none like that with the telltale mutant signature. But it was so far away, hovering on the fringes of this reality …  
  
He reached out mentally as far as possible, and suddenly found himself in what he knew to be Jean's "safe place"; the telepathic "retreat" from other people's thoughts that he had helped her create. Although it was her own personal place, it was one of the first things he taught telepaths, because other people's thoughts could be overwhelming, especially when the telepath was still young and learning to control their powers.   
  
What no one knew about Jean - not even Scott - was that when he first met her, she had been incorrectly diagnosed with an early form of schizophrenia called dementia praecox, and had been so heavily medicated she barely knew what month it was. But she still heard the other voices when people got too close, in spite of a very heavy cocktail of anti-psychotics. She was so tormented by her gift that it took her years to come out of her protective shell, and even then, she always seemed to be straddling the worlds, as if afraid that if she left her defenses for good, the "madness" would come back - even though, technically, it never existed in the first place. Jean was always special to him, because he felt her pain so acutely, and she had so much potential; she was like a daughter to him really.  
  
He remembered her safe area, and couldn't believe it was the same place he was in now. The plants had mutated, become these huge, monstrous things of complex knots and man sized thorns, and if the mansion of her mind was still here, it had been obscured by a wall of consumptive vines. The sky was on fire, burning, and he could see the grounds had been transformed into a lake of fire, with an oversized border of saw toothed mountains on the horizon. Was that supposed to be Alkali Lake?  
  
Xavier had some idea of a twinge in his stomach, back in his distant body; this was madness. Everything in this landscape had been transformed by something dark and twisted, something that had been allowed to go unchecked. It made him wonder if there was anything of the Jean he knew left.  
  
He felt an ice pick of sudden pain stab into his mind, tearing something, making him wince and wish to withdraw, but he didn't - he couldn't, not until he could talk to Jean (or whoever). But when his eyes could focus, he saw someone standing twelve feet from him, blocking his view of the   
  
lake. "Professor?" Jean said, surprised.  
  
Jean looked just as she had when she supposedly died, but with a few small changes. Her hair was longer and more brightly red now, as if soaked with blood, and her eyes were contained flames, barely confined within their sockets; she glowed with something akin to fire. The power she gave off made his brain ache and his eyes burn. He had to squint to look at her, but the pain in his head started to increase exponentially, and he knew he was rapidly running out of usable time. She was magnificent; she was utterly terrifying.  
  
"Why are you here? I thought-" she stepped towards him, and it felt like something burst inside his head, making him grab it and make a choking sort of gag as he tried to swallow a scream.  
  
He held up a hand and backed away, barely aware of his legs, or anything else. All he knew was pain. "D-don't come any closer," he said, feeling a warm dampness on his face. Blood? Probably; too thick to be sweat. "I h-have … I have to t-tell you…"  
  
He felt something like little explosions in his head, pop pop pop, and he wondered if those were his neurons giving way, rupturing under the strain. He dropped to his knees, the pain like shivers traveling down his spine, and he tried hard to focus through the bright red agony to what he knew he had to say. "I - " But Xavier had to stop, because he knew he had failed.  
  
He couldn't even remember why he was here.  
  
****  
  
It seemed beautifully, perfectly pointless.  
  
Scott shot those he could, but the fight was taken out of him with extraordinary rapidity. It didn't matter that he knew this wasn't Jean, not mention they all weren't Jean (she didn't have two dozen twin sisters) - he couldn't bear seeing himself hurt her again. It was a war between his logic (They aren't Jean! They were dead things that looked like her!) and his gut (You just shot Jean! Again!), and his logic was losing very badly. It didn't have much of a chance, not when he felt sick every time he hit one of the imposters.  
  
But that was the point. The reason they looked like the people that haunted them was to kick their legs out from under them, to make them lose the will to fight before it even started. It was great strategy, and Scott hated to admit it, but it worked. But would he really rather die than hurt pseudo Jean anymore?  
  
They swarmed him, and something snapped his knees out from under him, so he went falling on his back as they jumped on him, and they were smart ghouls; they kept trying to pin his arms down so he couldn't reach his visor. He kicked some off, but something wrapped around his leg like a boa constrictor - the Chameleon ones could change shape too?  
  
There were maybe half a dozen of them on him now, trying to pin him down, and they all but had him dead to rights; he wasn't even sure he wanted to fight them anymore. Bob had probably set them all up to die here anyways.  
  
But then one of the Logan ghouls stabbed him in the shoulder.  
  
All three metal blades punched through his upper arm, and he screamed in pain, instinctively trying to pull his arms free but unable. So he jerked his head hard to the side, feeling the glass hard ground beneath him, and felt the edge of his visor bite into his skull. Terrific. "Watch out!" he shouted, only for his team mate's sake, as he jerked his head to the side and knocked his own visor off. Only when he was certain he'd be looking at bad guys did he open his eyes.  
  
It was richly satisfying to see the Logan ghoul that stabbed him launched skyward, and everybody else around or near him tossed away like so many pieces of garbage. (He tried hard not to notice how many Jeans he may have hit.) He cleared them all off of him with a mere glance, the red energy splashing back at him on contact but curiously harmless ( the Professor was still looking into why that was, beyond the odd fact that no one's mutation seemed to specifically hurt them), and as soon as he had cleared them all off of him and away from his general vicinity, he closed his eyes, and blindly grabbed his visor as he sat up.   
  
He could feel blood running down his injured arm, the muscles trembling as if in spasm, and the three wounds - and he could feel each of them individually - pulsed with his heartbeat. Was it the fact that they were "fake" Logan claws (and demonic) that made them hurt so much, or did it really hurt that much to get stabbed by Logan? If it was the latter, no wonder he could clear a room so fast. Why had he actually entertained the idea of giving up? That was so unlike him. Maybe it was this place; maybe the Underworld, in spite of its bright prairie façade, oozed a special kind of defeat that wormed beneath your skin without your being consciously aware of it. A siren song of depression.  
  
He was getting up when something amorphic knocked him down - a shapeless Chameleon, and before he could fire at it and send it flying, something wrapped around its still liquid neck and tossed it aside. Helga then appeared, dripping green blood from what looked like a slash mark across her upper right arm, and minor cuts across her face. (Those Logans were deadly when in close range.) "What the hell did you shoot her with?" He asked, as it had been bothering him, in those few moments he could think.  
  
"Bob's blood," she said, looking around the chaotic plaza for someone. Xia was having no problems at all with any of them - good old natural force field - and Tom was left to just punch and kick them, but he seemed to be extremely well trained in hand to hand combat (but then again, he was former Organization, wasn't he? A glorified hit man ). "In theory, it should put any bad being on the ropes."  
  
Scott sensed a terrible loophole as he climbed to his feet, trying not to show her how he was favoring his bloody right arm. "She's bad, right?"  
  
"Well, you'd think, wouldn't you? Underworld and all."  
  
That wasn't really an answer, and they both knew it. However this worked, it was possible that blood bullet (Ew!) was no more harmful than a regular bullet. "Do you see her?"  
  
"I ain't all over the bitch, am I?"  
  
He took that as a no. "Could she be dead?"  
  
"If she was dead her minions would fall; she controls them. Do they look like they're crumbling to dust to you?"  
  
"So if that doesn't kill her, what will?"  
  
That turned out to be a rhetorical question, as sky woman suddenly appeared, being helped up by a minion who looked like an iguana turned into a biped with a natty suit and a boxer's thick build. What the hell was that supposed to be?  
  
Ereshkigal was bleeding night sky from the wound in her summer sky chest, and didn't look that good. But she was clearly still alive, as the sudden resurgence of ghouls proved. "Clear me a path," Helga said, taking off running, a knife suddenly materializing in her tail.  
  
"Hey - damn it," he grumbled, and did as she asked, mowing down minions in between Helga and Ereshkigal. It looked like she had a straight shot as she lunged for her … but of course, when had anything ever been that simple?  
  
Injured or not, she was a god, and when she saw Helga, the suns of her eyes flared brightly. "Miserable concubine," Ereshkigal snarled, and made a simple "lifting up" gesture with one hand. It sent Helga flying not just high over her head, but back first through the castle wall, high above them all, and with such force she disappeared inside the castle itself.  
  
And the tower itself started to topple over.  
  
Scott had to make an instant decision: shoot at Ereshkigal, or shoot at the castle. But the tower, impossibly big and wide, was falling fast, and looked to be heading right down to crush them all. There really wasn't a choice, and besides, did he really think he could hurt her if the bullet barely did any damage?  
  
He used wide beams to break up the tower, but the material was odd, and broke up in unpredictable ways. Sometimes he vaporized it; sometimes it broke up into still sizable and dangerous chunks; sometimes he did nothing more than punch a hole through it. Too much of it was coming down way too fast; Ereshkigal was simply trying to crush them all.  
  
As he tried to bust up a last piece the size of a Pontiac, heading straight for him, someone tackled him, and they hit the ground as the piece slammed down on the plaza. Scott had closed his eyes, sure he was crushed …but he could still hear his heart thudding frantically in his ears, and he didn't feel any great weight; he had felt no impact at all. With great reluctance - like acknowledging reality would destroy the fantasy - he opened his eyes.  
  
The huge slab of debris was hovering over him by maybe six inches, and he wondered if he had lost his mind until he realized he felt an arm around his waist, and there was a faint shimmer in the air where the dust and the sunlight could be seen.  
  
Xia. She had grabbed him and extended her force field around him.   
  
"Don't use your powers," she said, kicking and punching away the debris. "It'll just bounce back inside the field."  
  
"What aren't you immune to?" He wondered. They could see through the window in side of the façade that Ereshkigal and her "aid" (or whatever he was) had taken to the air with her aide and flown over the wall, soaring like an eagle, away from them. Her minions were still about, even though many were crushed in the castle's fall. But why would she care? They were dead anyways, weren't they?  
  
"I really don't know," she admitted, and he helped her cast the rest of the debris off of them. There were more ruins around him than he remembered - she really had saved his hash. Tom had ducked in to the area beside a still standing part of the castle base, and that had protected him from any debris; in fact, it looked like it was the only rubble free place around. Scott briefly wondered if part of his powers was the ability to sense or otherwise predict "fall" patterns - where things would end up once the rug had been ripped out from beneath them. Either that or he was damn lucky. Certainly Xia must have known he would be okay. He then added, almost as an afterthought, "Thanks."  
  
She just nodded, as if it was no big deal at all. "Do you think she's dead?"   
  
It took Scott a moment to realize she was referring not to Erishkigal, but Helga. "I don't know." He said, climbing to his feet. You'd think being thrown through an entire building would kill anything; but she was under the aegis of Moros (whoever he really was) and a demon on top of that. The one useful thing he'd really learned about demons was that, in general, they were made of tougher stuff than Humans.   
  
Some of the minions started to climb out of the rubble, some actually missing limbs but being completely unaware of it, and Scott shot a random few as Tom continued to beat, throw, and otherwise pulverize them. If they ever got back to their reality, he thought they'd make some good addition to the team, in spite of the Organization past. They certainly kept their cool when everything went bad.   
  
Xia gestured towards the break in the wall, and said, "Should we go after Eresh - Irish - her?"  
  
He sighed. "Why? Can we hurt her?" He looked down at the pulsing red ground, watching the different shades of red swirl and meld, and suddenly he had an epiphany. What had Xia called this when they first came in? A heart. And somehow tom's fantastic earthquake hadn't touched it because … because it really wasn't part of the ground? It was in it, but it was ... part of something else? Part of her?  
  
He couldn't believe how he was thinking. It was insanity, and he was basing his suppositions on nothing. The mere fact that this was unlike anything he'd ever seen before, and that she did seem to be a god of some sort didn't mean this was some outgrowth of her. And yet he was seized with the sudden, undeniable feeling that they had to break this; that if they could harm this, she wouldn't be much of a problem anymore.  
  
After shooting one more minion, he took a pot shot at a distant part of the plaza, just to confirm his beams weren't reflected off of it like it was the outer walls. It didn't do any appreciable damage, but no, it didn't rebound either. "Xia, help me" he said, turning his aim towards the ground, a meter away from where he was standing. He started to shoot a steady, coherent beam down into the glass like floor of the plaza. "We have to break this open."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I don't know. We just have to."  
  
Luckily, she didn't give him shit, like he figured Logan would. She just dropped to her knees and started hammering her fist into the ground, and her results were more immediate than his - shards of crystal started flying everywhere as she started to make a very neat, fist sized hole in the crystal.  
  
"I can help," Tom said, continuing to cover their backs against the dwindling minions.   
  
"Maybe when we get enough damage in this," she told him, moving over to start pounding the crystal a bit farther down. Scott started firing a coherent beam of energy into the hole she'd just left behind, and it seemed he was getting more done that way. All he needed was a foothold, a crack in the armor, and he could flood this thing with everything he had.  
  
They must have been on the right track, because he heard the minions coming back to life, and Tom was a little more busy in the corner of his eye. He only shot ones that got too close; otherwise he concentrated on the task at hand. He was sure it was important anyways.  
  
Xia kept moving around, punching holes in it everywhere, making the surface resemble Swiss cheese, and he understood what she was doing; she was making it easier for Tom to attempt to "break". How long had they been working together? They made a good team.  
  
"What do you think it is?" Tom asked, throwing a Collin into a Logan and knocking them both down. He seemed to work very hard at keeping the Logans out of slicing range, which was a great idea if he could make it work.  
  
"Maybe her power source," he replied, not wanting to admit the first thing that popped into his head: "Maybe her heart." It might have been the same thing anyways.   
  
This confirmed it - he was now officially insane.  
  
Tom paused to catch his breath, sweat plastering his hair to his face, the few minions left struggling to get to their feet. "So, we pull the cord, we get out of here?"  
  
"In theory." Scott hated to commit further, because he really didn't know what would happen if they succeeded. Quite possibly nothing, and then what would they do?  
  
In the corner of his eye, he saw quick, slithery movement, like a snake on the ground, and since it was moving away from him he really didn't think much about it … but where had a snake come from?  
  
As the danger of that familiar form and movement registered in his mind, the "snake" the Chameleon ghoul had become lunged up and shot straight through Tom's chest like a spear.  
  
Tom was so shocked he gasped, eyes as wide as saucers, and for a moment it was like time froze as blood poured down the new hole in his chest like red rain. Finally time was shattered when Xia uttered an anguished, "Tom!"  
  
Scott felt a deep and terrible twinge in his gut as Tom gave Xia the most heartbreaking, apologetic look he had ever seen, as if he had just failed her horribly somehow. He held out a hand to her as he collapsed to his knees, the blood already pooling on the crystal ground.   
  
She raced to him and took him in her arms as he fully collapsed, putting a shimmering hand over the gaping wound on his chest, staunching the blood. It just exited through the wound in his back, the pool of blood surrounding him growing even more.  
  
"Hon, it's okay," he told her, laying down on the ground, tears falling from the corner of his eye. Scott saw the Chameleon thing forming itself into a more humanoid pillar, and he shot it. Because he had his beam tightly focused to a "drilling" mode, it seemed to make the amorphic Chameleon thing explode into a billion droplets of something like water, and he was secretly glad. Tom grabbed Xia's hand, removing it from the entry wound, and said, "I'm going out with a bang."  
  
Scott saw his eyes fog over snow white, and he barely had time to hastily throw himself down on the ground before the world started to tear itself apart.  
  
Right away, it was worse than before, and he guessed Tom was pouring it on as hard and fast as he could, racing death as he bled out all over the ground that seemed to be quaking in abject anger. Tom arched his back and screamed, partly in pain and partly in rage, and the quake quickly reached a crescendo that not only matched his roar, but swallowed it whole.  
  
What was left standing of the castle started not to crumble but violently fling itself apart, and Scott was forced to hit the bucking ground and cover his head as the rocky debris pelted down on him. He was sure some of it had cut him, if not outright broken bones, but he couldn't tell, because his inner ear was convinced he was not on ground but a raging sea, and he was about to vomit.   
  
The shaking reached an intensity that was truly frightening; it not only knocked his heart out of rhythm (it was now thub-dubbing along like a rabbit shot full of caffeine, unable to hit a normal rate and making him feel out of breath as well as nauseous), but the remaining outer walls seemed to vaporizing, collapsing into instant enveloping clouds of stale, chalky dust.   
  
He curled up into a fetal ball, but threw up anyways, the pressure building up inside his head so great he was pretty sure his brain was going to explode before his heart did. But just as he was certain he couldn't take it anymore, he finally heard something over the seemingly enraged roar of the shifting of the earth: a crack he felt as much as heard, the sound of a massive calving, an iceberg big enough to sink three Titanics breaking away from a humongous ice shelf with enough violence to sink the floe.  
  
And then the quaking stopped. No, it died off to small shudders, and then came to a slow, incremental stop, yet Scott could still hear the roaring of his ears, still feel his muscles quaking in sympathy with the tortured ground. When his heart started falling back towards a normal rhythm, he leaned over and attempted to spit the sour taste of bile out of his mouth, and saw, in his peripheral vision, something like red vapor bleeding up towards the sky, out of the now fractured crystal ground.   
  
He had done it. Tom's last dying act was to break the world. He knew a man who didn't trust Logan couldn't be all bad.  
  
He sat up, and shot a few blasts towards fragments of the ground, busting it up more, releasing more of the red stuff. He had no idea what it was, but it wasn't giving off heat, and he couldn't smell smoke; it was just … what? Red fog? Something like that. Not blood, not like he expected.  
  
He heard shifting in the castle debris, and tensed, ready to fire on whatever minion survived that, but to his shock, he saw a flash of green as it crawled from the rubble. "You trying to wake me up, San Andreas Fault, I'm fucking up already; knock it off with the pony ride." Helga groused, pausing to sit and catch her breath. She had green blood streaming from her nose, and she was holding her right arm at an odd angle, suggesting it was broken.  
  
"You're alive," Scott said, more shocked than he would have thought. But she survived not only the throw and the fall, but that quake. That was an awful lot, even for a demon; even for her.  
  
"Like that Moros motherfucker would let me die," she said, with surprising bitterness. "If he can't, no one else can. I can just get completely fucking pulverized, but he ain't letting me go that easy." She wiped blood away from her head with her forearm, and said, "My my, Boy Scout - I'd never have bet on you as the last man standing. I'm impressed."  
  
He was in no mood for her. "I'm not the -" His glance over at Xia and Tom turned into a stare. Xia was draped over Tom's body, as if trying to protect him from the falling debris, and her posture was one of complete dejection and surrender. That was her husband; to him, he was just a random mutant, one of Logan's "org buddies", but he was her husband; her spouse had just died in front of them all.  
  
Scott's stomach twisted into a tight knot of empathy - oh, how he knew that hideous feeling to lose a loved one and be helpless to stop it - and carefully stood. Once he was sure he wasn't going to lose his balance, he started across the shattered plaza, where spider web thin cracks in the crystal gave it almost a mosaic pattern now, the red paling to a pinkish hue as the scarlet fog fled into the sky. He had covered half the distance when he noticed there was a piece of the rubble on her back, a small triangle like a shark's fin, that she hadn't bothered to knock off her field. Except something else was wrong, and it took him a moment to realize what it was: no shimmer. Her field was down. And she wasn't moving.  
  
"Xia!" He shouted, but he knew, before he even got there, what had happened. She had dropped her field, or never raised it at all. Her husband was dead, and she decided to go with him. Scott understood this instinctively, because he knew if he could have died in Jean's place (if she had indeed died) or died with her, he would have. Logically, it was pointless and stupid, but that was one of those "in retrospect" things; in the heat of the moment, all you could think of was your future without them, and you decided death was better than pain or loneliness.  
  
When he reached her, he saw the triangular debris was sticking out of her back, but as he reached for her throat to see if he could find a pulse, he saw that blood was dripping down from her scalp onto a scree of chalk white façade - her skull had been caved in by something large and heavy, possibly the bloody chunk of stone just a foot or so away. Scott didn't even realize he was crying until he saw the spots his tears made on the dusty ground.  
  
Even though she was dead, he felt like asking her why, and yet he knew the answer to that too. In the end, he and Xia had much more in common than he had ever thought.  
  
Tom was dead too, which was no surprise, and probably a blessing since he didn't live to find out his wife had died along with him. It didn't look as if any of the rubble had hit him, but the amount of dust coating his copious spilled blood made it almost muddy, and he had hemorrhaged from his eyes - he pushed his powers until every blood vessel in his eye burst, and it had streamed down his face like cheap mascara in the rain. He easily hastened his own death by pushing himself so hard. "But you did it," he told the dead man, wiping tears from his face and trying to get a hold of himself. He had to confirm Ereshkigal was finished, and then, who the fuck knew, maybe they could get out of this bright and shiny hell.  
  
Helga limped up next to him, and said, "You gonna be okay?" She had wrapped her own tail around her right leg, and he figured she was trying to keep it working, more or less. Surely it was broken too.  
  
"Yeah," he lied, and then became aware of a high keening noise. At first he thought it was from the red fog escaping from the ground - like a kettle whistle or something - but it was a bit farther away than that, and he became aware that it was spiraling ever higher, full of something a simple steam mechanism could never claim. It was full of bitterness and pain, rage and hate, and seemed to make the very air quiver, a beaten animal now in fear of its very life.   
  
It was Ereshkigal, and they had now officially pissed her off. Oh joy. 


	11. Part 11

The sound didn't seem to be getting any closer, so after exchanging a curious glance with Helga, they tacitly decided to go and face their mutual destruction head on.   
  
Since she was limping so greatly, he had no choice but to break his own rule and touch her; he put an arm around her waist and tried to help her stand. She accepted the help without a qualm, and he felt kind of bad for always thinking the worst of her. She was probably somewhat kind of crazy, but considering she hung around Bob, she was probably as normal as could be expected under the circumstances. Certainly being a demon didn't help.  
  
They were standing in the chalk ring of the former wall when they saw Ereshkigal as she turned towards them, her eyes in supernova. Her iguana pal pulled something out of his coat, but Scott didn't wait to see what kind of weapon he had; he simply shot him, a tightly focused beam that sent him flying across the field.   
  
The field itself had changed - the golden reeds were a sere and withered brown, as if subjected to a year long drought in a matter of seconds, and the sky above seemed to be curling up at the edges, a photograph held over a flame. Ereshkigal herself looked to be shrinking inward, her sky body clouding up with thick smog, her cheeks sinking in and making her face look sharply angular and truly inhuman. "You cannot do this to me!" She screeched, and as Scott braced to fire, she clenched her hand, and it felt like something was crushing his throat. He was paralyzed, as if gripped In a giant's fist, and he guessed Helga was the same way, as she wasn't moving either. Ereshkigal was clearly shriveling up, just like the fields - the question was, would she finally just die before they ran out of oxygen?  
  
And that's when they had a visitor.  
  
There was a noise, a very loud "Whoomph", and something - someone? - appeared in the dying field several meters behind her. She released them violently and they both hit the ground painfully, Helga letting out a strangled cry of pain, as Ereshkigal turned to face the interloper.  
  
From what Scott could see from his vantage point on the ground, it was a man wearing sleeves without a shirt. He was one of those demon with yellow crystal in place of eyes, like that head mailed to Logan, only this guy had scruffy, dirty blond hair and thick five o'clock shadow. As his eyes adjusted, he saw it wasn't sleeves he was wearing, but tattoos.   
  
From shoulder to palm his arms were covered with tattoos of twining black vines, the leaves somewhat like ivy but not exactly. And in lieu of a shirt he wore a black leather harness that crisscrossed his bare chest like a leather X. But as he reached behind him, Scott saw that it wasn't just a bit of Gothic decoration - it was holding a shield on his back. As he brought it around to hold before him, it reflected a flash of painfully bright light, and Scott's initial decision that it was silver quickly altered as he saw Ereshkigal doubled in its reflection, along with everything else. A mirror shield? Effective against laser beams, but what the hell else could it be good for?  
  
But the glass eyed demon hefted it up, aiming it as Ereshkigal, and shouted, "Call off your dogs of war, or face the wraf of Medusa!" He actually said "wraf" - he had a Cockney accent so thick you could stand a spoon in it. And did he honestly say Medusa?  
  
"Fucking hell," Helga gasped. "Is that Rags?"  
  
Rags? Oh, this just got better and better.  
  
Ereshkigal barked out a laugh that sounded pained. "Oh please. Like that stucco faced heap of parrot droppings could raise a finger against me. Leave, minion, before I lose my sense of humor."  
  
But the demon Helga had called Rags - who was apparently barefoot but wearing jeans with a hole in the knee, a slight bulge of a soon to be beer gut pooching out over his waistline - held his mirror shield steady, peering over the top of it with his odd crystalline eyes. "Medusa will not let you harm her faithful servant. Oh Holy Sifters - " It sounded like he said sifters, and Scott felt the crazy urge to laugh. "- turn your righteous gaze on -"  
  
"Shut the hell up, you stupid piece of meat!" Ereshkigal demanded, and made a violent hand gesture at Rags.  
  
"So now I'm supposed to believe Medusa exists?" He asked Helga, as it dawned on him - nothing had happened to Rags. He didn't go flying; he didn't freeze. He kept on invoking his god (?).   
  
"-on this usurper who wishes to harm-"  
  
"I told you to shut up!" Ereshkigal thundered, starting towards him.  
  
And then she froze.  
  
Light was shifting in the mirror shield, and Scott realized two things simultaneously: Ereshkigal was no longer being reflected in it - nothing was being reflected in it. And yet, a shape was starting to emerge from within its bright depths.  
  
Scott wracked his brain, trying to dredge up what he knew about Medusa. Sadly, it mostly came from some horrible movie he caught one night on cable. But wasn't she supposedly killed by seeing her own reflection in a mirrored shield, making her "powers" reflect on her and turning her to stone? So maybe there was some accuracy to the oft trotted out legend, but in the absolute wrong way; Bob would have you believe that was typical.  
  
What Scott started to see forming in the mirrored shield was a large, dark, shape that didn't look remotely humanoid. And Rags kept going on. "Oh holy sifters, pass judgment on those who would sin in your sight -"  
  
The image resolved into three women, standing in a tri-point stance (one in front, the others behind). They were very Human in appearance, and so stunningly beautiful he could feel his breath ripped from his lungs even when they were only half-formed. They were not identical triplets, although they were lovely in the same classic way, with high cheekbones and delicately pointed chins, something that the thick black strip of kohl painted(?) across their closed eyes couldn't mar in any way. They all had long hair, but it was still different; the front sister had hair the color of a starless night sky, while the other had hair as green as fresh limes, and the third hair as red as garnets. And their hair … moved. Not as if in a breeze, but as if alive - it curled around their faces, caressed their long, slender necks, and entwined with each other, living tendrils of color.   
  
(So not snakes. Mythology got that wrong too. But weren't the Gorgons supposed to be so hideously ugly they turned men to stone? How positively wrong could a myth be?)  
  
Ereshkigal made an odd noise, like she was trying to clear her throat and sneeze at the same time, and Scott the impression she was trying to break free of whatever was holding her in place.  
  
Then the Gorgons opened their eyes.  
  
All Scott saw was a flash of glowing red so bright he instinctively shut his eyes, and still had an afterimage of the frozen Ereshkigal burned into his retinas. He waited for it to fade, then opened his eyes slowly, peeking out the bottom of his lids just to be certain he wouldn't be blinded.  
  
Ereshkigal was still standing where he last saw her, only now she was a statue carved of pure granite, hand raised as if warding off an unseen attacker, mouth frozen open in a silent scream. "Holy shit," Scott gasped, unable to stop himself. The Gorgons did turn people to stone with a look.   
  
Rags collapsed to the ground, forehead down on the ground, ass in the air, as if worshipping at the feet of an unseen deity. But the guy was laughing. He paused to let out a victory whoop, and said, "Ah Sifters, your 'umble servant thanks you. You kicked her miserable, bony arse. I hail your magnificence." The way he said it, it sounded like "magnififence". He then continued laughing in what he realized now was utter relief.  
  
"Way to kick some godly ass, Rags," Helga said approvingly, sitting up. On the ground beside her, Scott had the right vantage point to see there was a fragment of bone sticking out of her leg, just below her knee. Compound fracture. How the hell was she not screaming in agony?  
  
Rags sat back on his haunches and grinned at her, taking the air in in great gulps. "I did nofing; it was the Holy Sifters, the Gorgons, Medusa and her merfiful sifters. They would never abandon one of their priests to harm by another … deity. She was a deity, right?"  
  
This guy's accent was unreal. Was he putting them on? Did he have a cold?  
  
"She was. Mesopotamian I think, but don't quote me."  
  
"Cool. Well, sumftimes it does pay to worship the right gods, ya know."  
  
Scott had finally mentally translated everything Rags had said. "Wait - you're a priest?"  
  
Rags nodded, and put his mirrored shield - now just a plain old mirror again - back onto his back. "A High Priest of the Stone Temple. I serve the holy trinity of Medusa, Euryale, and Sthenno."  
  
Scott was relatively certain the guy was putting them on, and yet every shred of proof that existed said he was on the level. But he didn't look like the high priest of anything but a hangover. "Holy Trinity? No one's told the Catholics about this, have they?" He said, making a lame joke.  
  
Rags shrugged as he stood up. "I don't bother wif the fringe religions."  
  
Okay, now that had to have been a joke.  
  
"Hey, can one of you boys help me up?" Helga asked. "I seem to have lost the ability to stand on my one good leg without passing out."  
  
"Oh, yeah," Scott said, getting up into a crouch beside her, so he could slip his arm around her shoulders. The arm the pseudo Logan had stabbed still hurt like hell, but couldn't possibly be as bad as a compound fracture and a broken arm. He thought about trying to carry her, but he didn't know how to do that without hurting her more. Also, he was relatively sure she wouldn't let him even try.  
  
"Fuck - was I too late?" Rags asked.  
  
"Too late?" She repeated, as Scott helped her up to her feet. She hissed a sharp breath through her teeth, but went on with the conversation as if nothing was wrong. "Hell man, you're our deus ex machina; whenever you bothered to show up, you were right on time. You're gonna have free drinks for a year."  
  
That brightened Rags up appreciably. "Yeah?"  
  
"Fuck yeah, I'll cover your tab. And since I'm bangin' the boss, I never have to pay it either."  
  
Did crudity come with insanity? Or maybe she was just that way. Maybe it was a demon thing.  
  
Rags gestured towards the ruins of the castle, specifically the red smoke trailing into the sky. "What's that about?"  
  
"Oh. Mr. Magoo and his friends broke open Ereshkigal's well of souls"  
  
"Why do you insist on calling me-" he began, but then stopped. "Well of souls? You're saying those are souls?"  
  
Helga shrugged as best she could. "Well, they're called souls. I've never seen one up close and personal, so I can't tell you if they're the real thing or not."  
  
Scott shook his head. Just when he didn't think things could get weirder, they did, and it never failed. There was no upper limit on weirdness, it   
  
seemed.  
  
"Can you give us a lift outta here, hero?" She asked.  
  
Rags nodded. "Yeah, why not? 'S not like the Sifters would allow me to stay here anyways."  
  
"Why not?" Scott asked, thinking there must have been a sinister side to Gorgon worship. How could there not be?  
  
"Well, this place is gonna collapse, inn't? When the god dies, the world they created collapses. Ever'body knows that."  
  
Scott considered that, aware that this still could be complete bullshit. Having a bit of fun with the only Human in evidence. "So the god that created Earth isn't dead?"  
  
Rags scoffed derisively. "No god created Earth - it's just a natural gateway convergence point. Blimey, what do they teach you in those Human school's a yours?"  
  
Obviously not enough. "Before we go … we have some people back there, and I don't want to leave them."  
  
The shirtless demon shrugged a shoulder. "Whatever. Pound or penny, doesn't matter shite."  
  
So this was it? They were going home?  
  
Why didn't it feel like victory?  
  
22  
  
Maybe the whole point of this was to prove that one person's heaven was another person's hell.  
  
No, scratch that: not heaven, but someone's idea of opulence could be hell … but didn't he know that already? Still, Logan figured it was just seeing it this way that made it seem like a new observation. Maybe it was this guy's idea of a good time, a glass mansion, but Christ on a crutch, did it have to be eighty fucking miles long? It seemed like they had been walking down the exact same see-through - and yet infuriatingly opaque - hall for what seemed like hours, but Logan honestly knew was minutes. And had they seen anything different, or the lord of the manner himself?  
  
On top of all of that, Bob had started to sing. "… bombs dropping down, please forgive our hometown, in our insignificance…"  
  
"Could you at least sing something cheerier if you have to sing at all?" Logan griped.  
  
  
  
Bob had the decency to pause, but only for a moment. "Well I could be condemned to hell for every sin but littering - "  
  
Logan was about to give him a nasty shove when suddenly there was a thud; a huge thud. Followed by an equally huge shadow … Oh shit.  
  
The guy - Nebby whatever the hell - was about eight feet tall, and made of ... well, of course, glass. Or some glass like substance, only translucent at the limbs. Most of the rest of his body was an opaque white, shot through with rainbow hues of blue, red, and green, like he had been made by an expert glass artisan. Bob must have been thinking along the same lines, because he muttered, "Dale Chihuly, eat your heart out."  
  
"You can't be a real Power," the glassine Nebby said, his voice as deep as a brass gong. "The Powers don't sing. Nor do they keep company with demonic half-breeds."  
  
"Kisses to you too, snowflake," Yasha replied.  
  
Nebby scowled. His eyes were a deep gold in the center, the only place where there was any color at all, and the thin fluff of hair he had crowning his head looked like frost you'd find on a windowpane. Logan thought the guy might actually be considered beautiful, if it wasn't for the fact that he was so oversized, and probably - as Bob had suggested - a complete dick. "Why should I not kill you interlopers?"  
  
Only after he said it did Logan realize it wasn't an actual question - Nebby was talking aloud to himself.  
  
"You do realize things have changed a bit since you looked out your rabbit hole, yeah?" Bob asked him casually. Everything about Bob was casual; even his posture remained loose. But that was one thing Logan had learned about Bob: he never ever looked like he was getting ready to fight, even when he was in one. He figured it was just a Bob thing, but Helga insisted that it was actually an Australian thing. "They're always ready to have a go," she told him. "But most of the time they don't even know it."  
  
Nebby's golden white eyes narrowed. His face was like an intricate cavern of glass, reflecting prisms. Logan was sure that if he appeared on Earth, most people would think he was a god or an angel; he was, honestly, magnificent.  
  
(And surely a dick. He probably knew how pretty he was.)  
  
"I know the Powers trapped me in a time bubble. The awareness came once it burst. Do you think I'm stupid, messenger?"  
  
"I'm not a messenger," Bob told him breezily. "Believe me, they'd never want me as their spokesmodel."  
  
Nebby studied him with an intensity that would have made Logan scream, but as always, Bob seemed unfazed. "You're too powerful too be a lackey. But you can't be one of them. Are you a failed experiment too? Did they send you here as some redemption ploy?" His bright eyes scudded over them in a manner that could be honestly described as dismissive. "With a charged up parasite and your avatar Human?" He chuckled, and it sounded like a crystal bell chiming. "Oh dear, this is so sad. Suicide missions always are though, aren't they?"  
  
"I'm not an experiment, I'm a mistake, much like you are," Bob said, at once matter of fact and caustic. "If you want to hurt the Powers - and believe me, mate, I sympathize - attacking the Earth plane isn't the way to do it."  
  
"Yes it is," he countered coldly. "They like to pretend they care about it, when all they really care about is control of the gateways. When they no longer have them to control, what are they then? Just a bunch of jumped up, know nothing pricks."  
  
Gateways? Maybe that's what they called all those alternate dimensional openings, like the chaos wave was throwing open all at once.   
  
"You're hurting the being of that plane," Bob continued, but Logan already guessed it was a lost cause. A mountain of a man made of glass probably didn't give in easily - or ever. "They never asked to get in the middle of our war."  
  
Whoa - this was a war? He thought it was a minor skirmish.  
  
Nebby probably snorted, but it was an odd sound, like someone blowing into a jug. "They are but insects, one breed of a million billion. If you're so concerned about them, just jump start the evolution of higher primates somewhere else. You'll get the same thing."  
  
"This is your last warning. Take your fight against the Powers somewhere else."  
  
"Or what, little Power?" The glass god asked, chuckling/ chiming again.  
  
"Or I shut you down."  
  
Now Nebby laughed hard, and sounded like a crystal gong. "Oh my gods, that's funny! And you actually think you mean it too!" He paused to wipe a glass tear from his eye. "You come to my realm with two natural born rejects, and think you can beat me? In my home, you miserable flop?"  
  
"Umm ... yeah, pretty much." Bob agreed amicably. And then, moving so swiftly he was a blur, punched Nebby in the kneecap, his fist glowing blue.  
  
The kneecap shattered like … well, glass, spiderwebbing cracks up his leg, as a startled Nebby stumbled back. "You miserable sheep shagger," he roared - well, as much as glass could roar. They watched with morbid fascination as his shattered knee healed up, a break in reverse, and Nebby said, his voice dripping with contempt, "You wanna fight, little Power? Fine; let's take it outside."  
  
He gestured violently upward, and their surroundings changed in the blink of an eye.   
  
They were suddenly standing on a windswept cliff, several feet away from a long wooden suspension bridge that led to a fragment of land that seemed to be floating; supported by nothing but pale green sky. It was covered by verdant blue growth too fine and lacy to be grass, but Logan could see no endless glass mansion. Nor was it on this side, where they were in the shade of a dense copse of exotic trees, their paper white bark as scaled as reptile's skin, their leaves as large and gray as elephant's ears, protecting them from the light of a blue-white sun.  
  
Logan edged closer to have a look below, see if the "mansion" was down there, but it seemed they were somewhere else entirely. One hundred feet below them was a red rock canyon full of jagged rocks that rose up from the ground like spires. If the fall didn't kill you, those things would.  
  
"What the hell kind of place is this?" Yasha asked, coming up beside him to have a look.  
  
They both heard the unmistakable sound of sizzling, smelled baking flesh, before they realized that it was her that was beginning to smolder.  
  
She let out a cry more startled than pained, jumping back quickly into the dark shadows of the copse, the pain making her vamp face emerged automatically. "What the hell..?" She wondered, staring at Bob as she slapped out the nascent flames on her arms.  
  
"No, what the heaven," Bob said, shooting the smugly pleased Nebby an acrid look that should have, by all rights, caused him to burst into flames. "What do you think brining this battle to a heaven dimension will accomplish, Neb?"  
  
Heaven dimension? Well, there were hell dimensions, so why the fuck not? It was symmetry.  
  
"I've already eliminated one of your pathetic little foot soldiers, haven't I?"  
  
"What does this mean?" Logan demanded, jerking his head towards Yasha's still smoking arm.  
  
Bob grimaced sourly, as if the words he had to say tasted bad. "It means no demon not born of this dimension can survive here. If not for Ammit's aegis, you'd be a pile of ash right now, Yash. All I can advise is that you stay in the shade."  
  
"Sit out the fight?" She exclaimed, lips twisting in disgust. "Fuck you, drai'shajan!"  
  
Nebby tilted his head to the side as he obviously translated the name (epithet?) often used to describe Bob. "The Fallen? How ironic, 'cause you are."  
  
Moving just as fast as Bob had moved in the glass castle, Nebby grabbed Bob by the front of his shirt and tossed him over his shoulder as easily as a sack of laundry, sending Bob plunging straight down into the ravine.  
  
Nebby cracked his massive knuckles, making a strangely musical sound (like a glass wind chime), and asked simply, "Next?"  
  
23  
  
Wesley tried not to glance at his watch - assuming it was still even functioning - but it was getting increasingly hard not to. Also, it was almost impossible to meditate while standing up.  
  
And, amphetamine boost or not, he still hurt. His ribs ached with every breath, and the sick pounding in his head seemed to ebb and flow, like a secret tide. Considering how blurry his vision was, he figured he either had a concussion, or the Berserker had literally slapped both his contacts out at once. The latter seemed possible, but unlikely.  
  
He hadn't heard any thuds from above since he came down here, and the kids hadn't shown up, so he presumed - he hoped - that the Sisters had stopped playing with their food and just killed the damned things.  
  
He briefly wondered if Marcus was still alive.  
  
The metal doors of Cerebro gasped open behind him, and he turned carefully so as not to aggravate his head, half expecting to see Xavier there. But he had told him the doors would open when he was through using the machine, not necessarily when he was leaving.  
  
Wesley stepped inside the cool, unusual room (truly a feat of engineering), and saw Xavier still parked in his wheelchair before the console,his diadem like direct interface hanging down loose at the side. "Professor?" he asked warily, heading down the metal catwalk.  
  
The fact that there was no response was not unexpected, but still troublesome. As soon as he reached him, Wesley pulled the chair out and turned it towards him for a better look at Xavier.  
  
The Professor was slumped in his chair, chin down on his chest, blood streaming from his nose and ears, soaking into his shirt and jacket in great dark patches. Wesley quickly checked his pulse, feeling his neck near the carotid artery, and he discovered his pulse was thready, weak and erratic. At least he was still alive.  
  
But in what state? He could be merely unconscious; he could also be completely brain dead. There was no immediate way to tell.  
  
Wesley wondered if it had been the worth the price Xavier just paid. 


	12. Part 12

****  
  
At first it was just movement in the overwhelming darkness, but Angel thought he heard something, a small noise multiplied by dozens, a kind of repetitive, muffled clicking. Storm decided to use lightning so they could have some illumination, but as soon as she did, and they could see what was coming towards them, they wished she hadn't.   
  
They were facing, in wave after dark wave, bugs. Giant bugs.  
  
They looked more or less like cockroaches or large beetles, only about twelve feet tall and nine feet in length. Their black carapaces gleamed, reflecting the lightning flashes like dark mirrors, huge pincer mouths opening and closing with metronomic regularity. It was that causing the clicking noise.  
  
"I didn't think bugs could get that big," Spider said, sounding numb. Well, a swarm of twelve foot evil cockroaches could do that to a person.  
  
"Not in the Earth realm," Angel concurred, getting a better batter's grip on his axe. "The physical realities of that dimension - the four square law - prevents it." He didn't bother to add that those rules didn't apply to gods or demons, as they were dealing with enough.  
  
"The who what?" Piotr asked.  
  
"Basically it says that, beyond a certain point, something would be too big to sustain itself in our gravity," Storm answered, giving him the shorthand version.  
  
"Right, it would suffocate under its own weight." Angel wondered why they were even having this conversation now, but it was something to do that was distracting. They stank of fear, himself included. There was nothing that quite wormed its way into the Human psyche like big, ugly, marauding bugs in a swarm. Very basic, but highly effective.  
  
"You know, I think I've had dreams like this," Piotr added, possibly trying for levity, but his voice was too weak.   
  
There was no counting the bugs headed towards them. Well over two dozen, and there seemed to be no ending to the dark horizon they were marching out of. The lightning didn't frighten them, but why would it? They were manifestations of darkness, courtesy of the twisted but limited mind of Kalfu, father of darkness.  
  
"Whatever you do, don't let them get near you with those pincers," Angel said, gearing up to make his move. "Avoid the legs too - they look spindly, but if they can step on you, they'll pin you down. Try and stay on top of them as much as possible, and don't let them gang up on you."  
  
"There's way too many of them," Spider said, pointing out the obvious.  
  
"I know. But would you rather die without a fight?" He asked, and then ran towards the lead bug.  
  
It leaned down towards him, pincers opening wide as it let out a screeching hiss, and Angel buried the axe in its head. It screamed like an air raid siren and reared up, almost taking him and the axe with it, but Angel yanked it out, just in time to cut off the head of another bug trying to get him from behind.  
  
The first one collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud that shook the quasi-existent earth, and Angel jumped up on its quivering body, using it as a launching point to jump up on the back of a living bug. He buried the axe in its back, breaking the steel like carapace, and it screamed and tried to throw him off as he jumped to the back of the next bug and did the same thing. This was a pattern he kept repeating, and it was all he could really do; at least no matter where he chopped into them, the wound would be fatal.  
  
Spider was pretty much following his lead, leaping from the back of the bugs, one to another, with enough force to make their bodies crack as if they'd been hit with a giant shoe. Some of them may have been technically alive, but they laid twitching on the ground, unable to move. Storm was skewering some with lightning bolts (the smell of fried insects was pretty disgusting), and seemed to balance herself on a small pillar of wind, keeping herself above bug access. Piotr was left on the ground, but was for now holding his own. In metal mode, he was able to punch them hard enough that he put his fist through their exoskeletons, and rip off their pincers. But he often paused to make a noise of disgust, suggesting he really didn't care for getting bug guts all over him.  
  
In spite of the fact that thy had easily wiped out over a dozen of these things, they kept coming at the same rate; an eternal army of flesh eating monster bugs. This whole thing was an exercise in futility; they were doomed.   
  
Oh, the ignominy of it all. Had he ever imagined that he'd be killed by a giant cockroach? It was so sad it was funny; too bad he was too tired to laugh.  
  
It was then he felt a prickle along the back of his neck, making his hair stand on end. It was a familiar feeling of power - Kalfu showing his ugly mug again? He turned his head towards what he sensed was the source of the feeling, but what he saw was not Kalfu, but a sliver of red light, cutting through the darkness like a scalpel. What the hell was it now?  
  
It must have caught other people's notice, because Piotr let out a sudden cry of pain, and Angel looked down to see one of the bugs had grabbed Piotr by the arm, and - metal or not - was chomping right through it. Well, demon bug - demon bugs could do anything. Angel didn't really know what the weakness of Kalfu created Bugzillas were.  
  
Before Angel could pull his axe from the back of the roach he was on now, Spider came crashing down on the bug's back with such force it didn't just crack, it splattered. Piotr yanked his arm clear and stumbled back, cradling the limb to his chest. It was still attached, just bleeding copiously.  
  
Angel jumped onto the back of a beetle charging Piotr and buried the axe in its thorax, making it screech and rear up - it was like trying to walk on a bucking semi - when something emerged from the gash or red light.  
  
It was a woman, of all things, and the bugs all screeched as one and started to do something they hadn't done before: backpedal. Being not just bugs but big, huge fucking bugs, this wasn't easy for them. Angel jumped down to the ground before he got accidentally thrown off and trampled in the bug rush.  
  
He soon realized why the Buggles were trying to get away so fast. This woman was shedding energy - god energy - like body heat, and it made her glow red, as if outlined by neon. She was a lanky woman in a black leather outfit with fiery red hair, and eyes that were indeed fire. Angel felt the almost undeniable urge to hide.  
  
Spider jumped down to join them, and Storm dropped down so dramatically it was like her powers suddenly gave way. "Jean?" She gasped.   
  
The woman looked towards them, but her eyes settled on him, and he felt his hackles rise as he realized her gaze was warm. He was ready to throw the axe if he had to. Her eyes narrowed, and she said, in an oddly layered voice, "You're not Human. But you're … familiar. Oh, yes - I've seen you in Logan's mind."  
  
Okay, so this was the Jean Logan mentioned? But he said she was just a mutant! Wow, how much back story had he missed here?  
  
But the demon inside him cringed once more, and he felt like jumping out of his skin as Kalfu's ill defined face appeared once more, hovering about ten feet in front of and twenty feet above Jean. "Who dares trespass -" he started to roar, but she didn't let him get very far.  
  
"Oh, be quiet," she interrupted, and she suddenly seemed to flare, like a sunspot, far too bright for them to look upon, and Angel could feel the shockwave go through him, and almost take him with.  
  
But as soon as the light died, and they could look again, the bugs were gone. Kalfu was gone; Jean was gone; her rip in darkness was gone. All of it … Angel couldn't even sense it anymore.  
  
"Okay, what the fuck just happened?" Spider asked, probably speaking for all of them.  
  
"That couldn't have been Miss Gray," Piotr said to Storm, and it sounded like he was pleading. "Could it? What's happened to her?"  
  
Angel knew, for his part, that he had to thank Logan for ever thinking of him, or he'd have been dead as those goddamn bugs.  
  
He got another creepy sense of power, and suddenly the world seemed to drop away from beneath them. For a moment it was like plunging into null space, their stomachs rising and heads falling, until they rather abruptly met the ground. But even before his vision came back to him, Angel knew from the scent alone that this was Earth - his Earth.  
  
He could almost smell the sun, hidden behind black storm clouds for now, but it made his skin crawl. He had to get inside as quickly as possible.  
  
He had just shoved himself up to his knees when he heard someone darting out towards them, and he turned, instinctively tensed to fight, to see Cyclops stop just short of them. "Are you guys all right?" He asked, and seemed to stare at Piotr's bleeding arm.  
  
Piotr was sitting up, still cradling his bloody arm, but he looked stunned in a way that had nothing to do with his injuries as the steel slowly ebbed away from his skin. "We saw - it was -"  
  
"We need to get him inside," Storm interrupted, getting to her feet. Piotr looked up at her, clearly confused, but Angel figured out that she didn't want to tell him about Jean, not yet anyways. He wondered why. "He's been hurt pretty badly."  
  
"Is Logan around?" Angel asked, jumping to his feet. Maybe he'd know what was up here.  
  
Cyclops shook his head, and went to Pitor, helping him up. "No, we just got back ourselves. The front of the mansion is trashed again, and the lounge is full of frozen giant rats."  
  
"What happened?" Storm asked. "Are the kids okay?"  
  
Angel felt a chill run down his spine, and he had a sudden bad as he looked sharply behind him -  
  
- to find the Weird Sisters leering down at him, with bright and sinister eyes. "Hello-"  
  
"-Daddy." They both reeked of Berserker blood.  
  
He groaned and shut his eyes, hoping they'd be gone when he opened them again, but pretty sure they wouldn't be. He still had the axe, and considered using it, but the fact that he thought about it meant it was too late. While he wasn't completely convinced they were telepathic, they did have an eerie ability to know what you were thinking the moment you did. He could try his luck now, but he had a feeling they were already getting ready to laugh at him, and there was nothing more bone chilling than their disdainful, crow like cackling. They just had to come along with Bob, didn't they? If he didn't know better (did he?), he'd think Bob only had them as part of his entourage to annoy him.  
  
He hoped wherever Bob was, he was paying for this.  
  
24  
  
"So, tell me, you got glass guts?" Logan asked, tensing for a lunge. If he hit just right, he bet he could cut the fucker in half.  
  
Nebby chimed a delicate laugh. "No guise works with me, Human. I -"  
  
"You're a flippin' galah," Bob said.  
  
Logan figured he'd teleported, but he followed the turn of Nebby's head, and saw that Bob was … floating?  
  
He looked like he was standing in mid-air, four meters away from and slightly higher than them, glowing a violent blue. The energy seemed to stream from his eyes and surround him, a network of living tears. "Call me little Power all you want, Neb, but I'm still one of them - and do you really think you could make me fall to my death in a heaven dimension? When they were givin' out brains, they scraped the bottom of the pot   
  
for you, didn't they?"  
  
With Neb distracted by Bob, Logan made his move.  
  
Logan charged forward, popping his claws at the last minute, and drove it through Neb's glass gut, ripping clean to the other side. He felt his own skin tear on the splintered shards of Neb's "skin".   
  
Nebby backhanded him with a pained roar, and it was like getting swatted with a cement mixer. His vision dissolved into motes as he went flying, and hit something so hard it broke. (He hoped it wasn't his spine.) When he could see again, he saw he'd hit a tree hard enough to snap the trunk like a celery stalk, and with enough continued velocity that it fell the other way instead of on top of him. His one lucky break.  
  
Bob and Nebby appeared to be grappling within a halo of swirling blue and white light, but this time on the ground. Yasha edged over to him, still looking pissed off that she had to remain in the penumbra of shade, and asked, "Break anything?"  
  
"Not yet." He honestly wasn't sure, but he didn't want to do an inventory just now. And it looked as if he hadn't cut the bastard clean in half either. Shit. He was denser than he looked - probably in more ways than one.   
  
From seemingly out of nowhere, a glass ball a bit smaller than a cue ball hit the dirt and rolled into the copse, and Logan sincerely hoped that was not a piece of Nebby. "I will not be trapped in one again!" He roared, and tried to throw Bob, but it didn't work, and they both went rolling onto the suspension bridge. They might be supernatural beings bleeding energy that could have singed your short and curlies, but still, they kind of looked like two belligerent guys in a Glasgow pub on a Saturday night after payday.   
  
Trapped in what? The ball? How could Bob shove his big, oversized glass ass in that? But he had said "again" … a time bubble? Oh fuck, how hard of a blow to the head did he take to think that?  
  
But it made perfect, completely fucked up sense. They didn't need to kill him necessarily, just encase him in time like amber. Maybe it wasn't even possible to kill him.   
  
"Did you see where that thing went?" He asked her, as he stood up. Oh wow, did his back hurt. Made him feel like an old man.  
  
"The golf ball? Maybe. Why?"  
  
"I think Bob's gonna need it." It looked like Bob needed all the help he could get; Nebby had him pinned down to the bridge and was now pounding his face to mush. Shitty for Bob, but it left Nebby's back exposed.  
  
Logan ran towards the bridge and then jumped, not wanting to alert Nebby with his footsteps on the bridge. His dive was accurate enough, as he landed sinking his claws deep into his prismatic back. He screamed and threw back his massive head, slamming it straight into Logan's face. His nose shattered and he saw blinking motes once more, even as he felt the blood streaming down his face.  
  
Before he was aware of anything happening, he was flying through the air, and heard Yasha shout his name. He just barely hit the rope railing of the bridge, and as he went over it, he made a desperate grab for something solid, and managed to snag the side of bridge with his claw.   
  
For a moment he dangled off the side precariously, head still swimming, but managed to slide his other hand between the slats as the bridge rocked and swayed drunkenly, as if trying to deliberately throw him off. But it was just the fight between godheads, and Nebby still looked to be winning this one.  
  
"I am the utmost!" Nebby roared, slamming his glassy fists into Bob, like he was a nice, tender punching bag. "I will not be defeated by a godlet!  
  
You Powers can go to hell! I am-"  
  
Logan was starting to pull himself up onto the bridge, intending to shout to Yasha to see if she found the time bubble or whatever the hell it was yet, when he saw a blur in the air, dark yet smoldering.   
  
It all happened so fast he mostly realized it retrospect.  
  
A vamped out Yasha, sizzling and smoking from exposure to a godly sun, vamped out due to the pain, leapt on Nebby's back like he had, but with enough force to shove him off the side, his weight tearing through the rope rail like tissue paper. And even as they fell over the side, she smashed her fist through his glass torso, and inserted the time bubble and she turned into living flame.   
  
Nebby screamed in agony as he fell, reaching to claw at the hole in his shattered chest, as Yasha became a pillar of flame that quickly disappeared into ash that drifted in the sky like a granular cloud. Nebby's glass body lost its prisms, became milky white, and he was so preoccupied with digging out the object in his body he didn't bother to save himself from smashing down to the ground.  
  
Logan couldn't honestly believe he'd seen what he'd seen. Yasha just … she didn't just burst into flames and dissolve into nothing. That hadn't happened. How could that happen?  
  
He was filled with a strange, cold numbness that wasn't unfamiliar, and let himself fall.  
  
He didn't even try to land on his feet. He hit the rocky ground hard, sending shudders of pain through his charged body, but he ignored it as he crawled on his elbows and knees towards the prone figure of Nebby, who seemed to be turning to ice. Logan could still taste ashes in the air and see them scattered on Nebby's broken torso as his golden eyes started to cloud over, brim with milky white. "You fuck," Logan growled, and slammed a claw right into the center of his face.  
  
He kept doing it until he shattered his whole head, and because it didn't feel quite satisfying enough, he retracted his claws and just started smashing his fist into what was left of him, the glass shredding the skin of his knuckles even as it broke under his assault. Some slightly milky fluid that had absolutely no scent at all started oozing among the ruins, and he wondered if that's what passed for its blood. The head was gone and he was working on the body when he heard Bob say behind him, "He's dead, Logan. You killed him before the stasis field could fully take effect."  
  
"Why did you let that happen?!" He roared, snapping his head back to glare at him.  
  
Bob looked pretty messed up himself, with cobalt blood streaming from his nose, dripping from a cut beneath his eye, trickling from a split lip. "I didn't, Logan. I -"  
  
"Why didn't you tell us about the fucking time bubble?!" Yasha must have figured out what it was, just like he did, and decided to take her shot, no matter that it would probably kill her. That was the main problem with tough women: they didn't know when to hang back.  
  
"If Nebby saw it in your minds, he -"  
  
"Can you bring her back?" He demanded. He was so angry he didn't even feel the burn of healing in his hand; he felt like he was full of molten lava. And he felt like driving his claws straight through Bob's face.  
  
Bob shook his head and grimaced sympathetically. "I don't do resurrections. I'm sorry."  
  
Logan wanted to see if he could cut him up, shred him like Nebby, but he knew he wouldn't get very far. That just made him angrier, and he had to turn away before he did something he regretted. "You should have never brought her here."  
  
"I didn't know he'd shift the location; I didn't realize he'd be so afraid of vampires."  
  
If he was making a joke now, he would kill him. "Why would a god be fucking afraid of vampires?"  
  
"Because, like him, they're a half-breed. No one could know better than him how dangerous they could be."  
  
He supposed it was an answer, just not a very satisfying one. No answer would be enough, though, would it? He didn't want to cry, but in spite of his best efforts, his throat closed, and he could feel hot tears trailing down his cheeks, the saline burning the cuts that had yet to completely heal. He knew, on one level, it was stupid to cry over the death of a vampire; but this wasn't just any vampire, this was Yasha.   
  
Oh damn it. He knew this was trouble. He knew she never should have come along. But how could he keep her out of a fight? It would have been like keeping him out of a fight. They had always been too much alike.  
  
He tried to swallow back the rage and despair that threatened to overwhelm him, but it was still choking him; he was finding it hard to breathe. "Let's get the fuck out of here," he growled, wiping the snot and tears off his face and smearing blood. As soon as he said it, he knew couldn't go back like this. "Gimme a push, will ya? I can't - I don't wanna seem like a fucking wreck."  
  
"I doubt you need it. You're the master at putting your feelings off until later, aren't you?"  
  
Logan was going to chew him a new one, until he realized that was probably a subtle push.   
  
"Let's just go," he grumbled, aware that the feels of aimless rage and strangling sorrow was starting to ebb; not disappear, but wane, fall back behind natural barricades inside his own mind. He could live with that, if only for now.   
  
He wondered how many others hadn't made it.  
  
25  
  
It wasn't a surprise to find that the mansion was trashed, but he was surprised to find who was loitering around.   
  
They just popped up in the main foyer of the mansion, which now had the front door missing, and about an inch of water on the hardwood floor, tinged pink with blood. Wesley, with a bloody bandage on his head and a slightly glazed look in his eyes, showed up instantly, to ask Bob to come downstairs, as they had wounded. Logan followed, mainly because he wanted to know who.  
  
The answer wasn't good. Xavier was down, after contacting Jean (fuck, that's what he was doing?! He was lucky his head hadn't exploded like Delirum's), and Marcus had fought with a Berserker, which pretty much said it all. That was how Wes had gotten himself banged up as well, but Bob "fixed" him in the elevator (well, all he said was "You're fine,"), and Wesley didn't even seem to notice. Piotr almost got his arm bitten off by a demon bug (he didn't even want to know), but was better off than most.  
  
Down in the bright metal corridors that made up the real guts of the mansion, the first person they encountered on the way to labs was … Rags?  
  
Rags, for some reason wearing a Xavier Institute sweatshirt. "Oi, Bob, Medusa said to say hi to ya."  
  
"Oh yeah? How's she doin'?" Bob replied casually. Medusa?  
  
"Well."  
  
"What about you?"  
  
"I'm good. I fink I'm over my depression. Well, 'til the high wears off …"  
  
"Take what you can get," Angel said, coming down from the other end of the hall. He looked okay, but smelled of something sour … bug guts?  
  
"Ooh, swoopy, besouled fancy ass vamp finally shows 'is face," Rags taunted. "I fought you ran off."  
  
Angel glared at Rags, for all the good it would do. Did they know each other? Or was it just his rep? "I was talking to Amaranth. By the way, Bob, she's threatening to give you a witchcraft enema."  
  
Bob just shrugged. "Least of my problems at the moment. I'll make her some pineapple tarts and she'll forgive me."  
  
Pineapple tarts? Again, he didn't want to know.  
  
Angel gestured with his eyes alone that he wanted to talk, and Logan nodded and hung back as Bob and Wesley continued down the hall. "They bad?" He asked quietly, as Wes hadn't exactly specified the severity of their conditions.  
  
Angel half shrugged, reluctant to be the bearer of doom. "Xavier's the worst, although I have no idea how Marcus survived after losing so much blood. Must be perks to being a mutant."  
  
"Sometimes."  
  
"So, you guys are tight or somfing?" Rags said. He remained loitering a bit farther down the hall, obviously deciding the entertainment was here, and not in following Bob and Wesley. "I guess that makes sense."  
  
"Why do you say that?" Not that he hated being associated with Angel, it was just Rags said it with such disdain. But why the fuck was he here? And what happened, because he seemed to be giving off an air of confidence that was foreign to him.  
  
" 'Cause you bof never met a demon you didn't kill, haven't ya?"  
  
Both he and Angel exchanged curious glances, wondering what the fuck he was on about - had one of them killed a friend of his? - before Angel replied, "That's not true. I have demon friends."  
  
"I've dated some," Logan said, substituting "dated" for the correct term, which was actually "fucked". (Well, mixed company.)  
  
"I wasn't disparagin' ya guys, you jus' got a similar kinda rep, 's all."  
  
"The majority of demons don't like us?" Angel guessed.  
  
Rags gave him a thumbs up gesture. "Yer names are like shoutin' "mad cow" at a Burger Shack." Logan was still trying to figure out how to take that when Angel just shook his head, deciding that pretending Rags wasn't here was the best course of action.  
  
He leaned closer, and whispered, "Where's Yasha?"  
  
Oh god, here it was. Something in Logan's gut twisted, and all he could was shake his head. But Angel was smart enough to figure out what no answer meant. "Oh shit," he said, with genuine regret.  
  
"Whaf's 'appened?" Rags asked, apparently picking up on the somber tone. "The world still isn't endin', is it?" Rags had started to come over, but stopped short, sucking in a breath so sharp it was like he'd been punched.  
  
"Logan-"  
  
"- sad," the Weird Sisters said, sashaying down the hall.  
  
Rags started to back up, and said, "You know wha'? I gotta phone call to make. See ya upstairs." He then ducked into the nearest elevator. Coward.  
  
Although he grimaced in distatse at saying the words, Angel told them sharply, "Girls, now is not the time."  
  
"We-"  
  
"-can-"  
  
"-cheer him-"  
  
"-up, Daddy-"  
  
"-you can't."  
  
"Don't call me that," Angel hissed at them. Although he had no idea why the mixed nuts were here, he was glad they were, because, for a moment, Logan felt more sorry Angel than he did for himself. Imaging having them as your "kids".  
  
The Sisters leered at him in stereo, and now Logan could get a whiff of burning tires - Berserker blood? Wow, what the fuck had happened while he was gone? "Why -"  
  
"-not?"  
  
"Are you -"  
  
"-going to -"  
  
"-spank us?" Even though it was clearly mocking, there was a buried challenge in there somewhere.   
  
"You can't take 'em anywhere," Logan commiserated, knowing that from hard experience.  
  
"Why don't we take this somewhere private?" Angel suggested to him, although he was giving the Sisters his best flaming death look. That only seemed to amuse them.  
  
"Yeah, let's," he agreed, retreating farther down the hall. But what the hell was he going to say when he got there? 


	13. Part 13

The Sisters didn't follow, but leered and waved like people leaving on a cruise ship, which was unsettling enough on its own. Creepy girls.  
  
They went into an unused lab, and as soon as the door sealed behind them, Angel asked, "What happened?"  
  
"You first," Logan said, stalling for time. Even though he knew it was just a ploy, Angel played along and told him what had occurred on the dimension they were packed off to. A voodoo god sounded like fun, even before the cockroaches, but he felt slapped when Angel told him Jean showed up and "took care of it". "What did she do?"  
  
Angel shrugged, throwing his hands up helplessly. "I'm not sure. It was like a … psionic shockwave, full of enough god energy to dissolve everything that wasn't Human. And, well, me. By the way, thanks; Jean apparently recognized me from your mind, so I didn't get fried."  
  
"She said that?" Had he ever told Jean about Angel? He didn't think so, which bothered him a little.   
  
Angel raised an eyebrow at him. "You never mentioned me?"  
  
"Not really. No offense, but I still feel silly talking about vampires like they're really. Which they are, but …"  
  
"I understand. Even when I first got turned, it took me some time to adjust to the idea. I mean, I'm dead, but I'm not. And there's nothing creepier than digging yourself out of your own grave. I still get claustrophobic in small, dark places that smell of dirt."  
  
"Dig -" But Logan stopped himself and shook his head, deciding he knew enough. "How'd the others react to her?"  
  
"Shocked. Jean didn't really say anything to them, and didn't stay, lending a hit and run aspect to it all. Then, when we came back, Storm stopped Piotr from mentioning it to Scott. No one's talked about it since. Do you know why?"  
  
Logan scowled, not really wanting to discuss this now. Or possibly ever. "Maybe 'cause she's changed so much, and Scott ain't handling this god crap too well."  
  
He nodded, deciding that was reasonable. "It has nothing to do with her familiarity with your mind?"  
  
"What? She didn't say that."  
  
"No, but she didn't have to. That was the impression I got."  
  
He had to stop staring at Angel, because the guy just picked up on things that he shouldn't have, but that seemed to be a vamp thing. That gave him hope that the others were far too stunned - and normal - to have picked up on that. "Look, let's not get into this."  
  
Angel sighed, and crossed his arms over his chest. He was leaning against a metal table that was almost too low to be adequately used for that purpose. He was a tall vampire, wasn't he? "Fine. What happened to … what happened?"  
  
Logan wasn't sure he could say it. But Bob's push was still in effect, and he was able to recount the story of Nebby and his glass castle, and the strangely brief battle on the bridge. He couldn't quite look at him while telling it, so he stared at the floor and the far cabinets, and found himself replaying it in his mind - he could see what he should have done, but that couldn't do Yasha any good now, could it?  
  
Angel didn't say anything until he was done, and Logan hadn't expected him to, because unless it was a crisis he didn't interrupt people. Maybe it was because he was two hundred or whatever. He gave him a sympathetic glance, and said, "It probably means shit now, Logan, but she died the way all vampires hope to die - fighting. That's what makes the breed … my breed … so troublesome. We like to kill, we like to destroy, and we don't like others trying to destroy us. Look at Yasha and her history with the Templars, or Angelus and … well, everything that crossed his path." he grimaced self-consciously, but probably didn't like referring to himself in the third person. "There couldn't be a worse death for a vampire than getting staked in your sleep, or having the curtains thrown open on you on a sunny day. If we're going, we're taking as many people with as possible. Certainly our killer."  
  
"Sounds like me," he admitted, not unaware of the irony.   
  
Angel half shrugged. "You're just an asshole. There's a difference."  
  
He stared at him, then realized Angel was too good at the deadpan shit. He shook his and looked away, not ready to laugh just yet, but unable to suppress a smirk. "And you claim you haven't seen Bob for ages."  
  
"He's not the only smart ass around these parts. Just the best known."   
  
True enough. "So, as apocalypses go, how did this one rate?"  
  
He had to think about it a moment, unfurling his arms and scratching his head. "Well, it had its moments that put it in the top ten. But I can't remember one having so many bugs in it."  
  
"I thought the end of the world would always have insects."  
  
"Every apocalypse is different."  
  
Oddly enough, that wasn't reassuring. But maybe it wasn't meant to be.   
  
"Umm, you know, Yasha asked me to use Wolfram and Hart's resources to look into your past."  
  
It felt like someone stabbed him in the chest with an icicle. "What? Why?"  
  
"She felt the key to taking down the Organization was in your past, that we have to figure out why they want you so badly."  
  
So that's why she was in L.A. He almost didn't want to ask, but felt like he had to. "What did you find out?"  
  
"Well, it's still a process. There's lots of files, and no specific "mutants only" section; it's mixed in with other things. But … does the name Operation: Nightfall ring any bells?"  
  
Logan stared at him, instantly suspicious of anything with the word "operation" in the title. "Should it?"  
  
Angel shifted uncomfortably, and Logan braced himself for the worst. "It was a secret intelligence operation among the Allies in World War Two. It was in their files and we didn't know why, until we studied a photograph …"  
  
"No," he interrupted, shaking his head emphatically. "I don't want to hear this."  
  
"Logan -"  
  
"No. Not now. I can't … just not now."  
  
World War Two? Angel was going to tell him he was in the photograph, wasn't he? Fucking World War Two?! Wouldn't that make him … older than Magneto? Older than Xavier too? Maybe Bob was right; maybe he was virtually immortal.   
  
If that was true, he was better off not knowing.  
  
"You know, I didn't really trust her, but she honestly did care about you. I don't know why." Angel paused briefly, then added, "Okay, that didn't come out right …"  
  
"I know what you meant," he said, just wanting to get this awkwardness over with.   
  
How bad did things have to be if a vampire felt compelled to comfort you? Man, he needed a new life.  
  
(And this had only occurred to him now? He was in worse shape than he thought.)  
  
26  
  
Apparently, the worst part of near apocalypses was the clean up afterwards. Wesley suggested they rent a forklift, but no one was sure where you did that, or where they'd park it.   
  
So in the end it was just them cleaning up. Bob talked Amaranth into casting a spell that somehow gave them a front door again, but Bob himself got rid of the rat-sicles after healing everybody. Although Bob was in no great shape himself, Helga was up and walking around in no time, and riding herd on the Sisters, as she seemed to be the only one not completely freaked out by them. ("They have a crush on Bob, and I'm his girlfriend," she replied. "They know they can't fuck with me.")  
  
Xavier was technically healed, but Bob warned he might not be around for a while, due to "psychic shock". Marc was healed , but would still be out until his blood volume was up to a reasonable level. Piotr's arm was perfectly fine, although he had half convinced himself there was no fight involving giant bugs.  
  
Bob's relatives brought the rest of the kids back from Australia, and none of them seemed to realize it hadn't been a field trip. Logan met only one of the relatives, a handsome Japanese man named Akira, who was one of Bob's great grandsons, and proved it by having nuclear blue eyes, and an Australian accent so thick and rangy he was only some f sounds away from being Rags.  
  
Once they were pretty sure their usefulness was at an end, Angel and Wesley decided to pack it in, and return with Rags, who was teleporting back to the West Coast. (He said he had a "service" to give on Friday night, whatever that meant.) No one asked the Sisters if they wanted to go, but Logan could understand both Rags and Angel (and probably Wes) wanting nothing to do with the Sisters ever again.  
  
Scott decided to stick around, at least until Xavier was back on his feet again, but Logan knew he was lying; he was sticking around, period. He just wasn't prepared to admit it yet. And no one had mentioned Jean's appearance to him, or the reason for Xavier's psychic "blowout" - maybe they were all waiting for Xavier to break it to him. What if it did come out that Jean had been in contact with him for some time? No one could have known about … well … and certainly no one would tell Scott, but he'd blow a gasket in simple jealousy over Jean talking to him first. Logan had no intention of sticking around for that little drama, but what the hell was he going to do? When it occurred to him to go to Vancouver and clean out Yasha's apartment, he felt equally sick and angry. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that maybe that was all he could do for her - promise that her beloved Templar weapons didn't fall into the wrong hands.  
  
He was back in his room, trying to decide if he wanted to make some token effort to pack or simply punch a hole in the wall, when there was a brief knock on the door, and Bob poked his head in. "Haven't run off yet?"  
  
Logan glared at him. "Yeah; I'm a hologram."  
  
"Ha. Hairy guy makes with the funny," he replied, coming in uninvited and closing the door behind him. He had changed his slightly bloody clothes, going for jeans and a black t-shirt that said simply, in red letters, 'Bad Example'. No one would disagree with that.   
  
"I don't think you wanna be here now," he growled. He was really tempted to try and punch him.  
  
Bob gave him an infuriatingly smart ass smile. "Now, I understand you're angry at me, but now that I've gotten everything out of the way, I thought there was something you'd like to know."  
  
He didn't answer, he just continued to glare bloody murder at him.   
  
"Okay, fine, be that way. Yasha died under the aegis of Ammit."  
  
He'd come here to tell him shit he already knew? "So? Does that mean she's not dead?"  
  
"No. But it does mean she didn't quite end up like most vampires."  
  
"Dusted? Yeah, she did."  
  
"No, I mean - oh, fuck, I'll just show you."  
  
Before he could protest, Bob opened his arms abruptly, and the scene shifted with such violence Logan felt momentarily queasy. They had shifted to an odd dimension with blood red grass and a ruby red sky, with a huge, dense thicket of banyan trees behind them, and before them a huge, open courtyard of blue marble. It looked like it should have had a roof or maybe other bits of housing around it, but it didn't - it was like a stripped down but still fancy mausoleum. With a hot tub?  
  
"This is Ammit's realm," Bob said, as if that explained everything. "Now, remember when you asked if there was an afterlife, and I told you know, not for normal Humans? Do you remember what I told you about demons?"  
  
What the fuck was this about? Why the guessing game? Couldn't Bob just come out and tell him for once? "Fuck man, I don't know! Something about them returning to their home dimension."  
  
"Right. And for vampires, that's generally what we'd consider a hell dimension."  
  
He threw up his hands in disgust. "So now you're telling me Yasha's gone to hell?"  
  
"Oh, the décor isn't that bad," Yasha said. "A little weird, but hey, gods are like that."  
  
Logan turned around slowly, feeling like his heart had stopped beating; if he breathed, he might shatter the illusion.  
  
"So, like I was sayin'," Bob continued, as Logan did indeed find himself facing Yasha. A few feet behind her and to the right was an odd looking half cat/half crocodile type humanoid with an impressive set of boobs (all three of them), but since it wasn't attacking, he didn't care. "It might be the usual way of things, but when you die under the protection of a god, the god overrides any instinct. You belong to them - well, in a manner of speaking."  
  
"And that's only half as creepy as it sounds." Yasha agreed.  
  
Logan approached her warily, half expecting her to disappear. Was this a Bob trick? A push? Was he hallucinating? "You're alive?" He asked in disbelief, taking her in his arms and hugging her tightly to him, if only to make sure she was corporeal. She was; she felt not just solid, but warm. Or at least warmer than she had ever been, except after feeding.  
  
"No, I'm dead," she replied, hugging him back, stroking his hair. "Again. How many times can a person die? And this time it fucking hurt." She gave him a peck on the cheek before pulling back. "So, did I get the fucker or not?"  
  
"You got him," he agreed. She hadn't asked if she had killed him, so he was technically not lying.  
  
Bob went over to the triple breasted cat/crocodile woman, and said, "Come on, Ama, let's go tease the sylphs and leave these two alone for a bit."  
  
The woman shrugged, and said, "Why not? Orgies are getting old."  
  
Orgies? Logan almost asked, but instead let them walk off, and looked back at Yasha. It was hard to keep the tears out of his eyes, which made him feel like a complete pussy.   
  
Still, she smiled at him and grasped his upper arms firmly. "So, samurai, how you gonna get along without me?"  
  
He grimaced at the samurai name, but what could he do? "You can't come back?"  
  
"No. Ammit's a vengeance god - she doesn't do resurrections. I can't leave her realm, basically. I can actually die … er, completely disappear. She told me she could even arrange for me to go to hell if I really wanted to; she knows some people. Even though I'm sure I deserve to go, oddly enough, I'm not enthused about the prospect."  
  
"Completely disappear?"  
  
"Stop - really die - but like a normal person. I'll just be recycled energy; I won't end up anywhere else, won't be conscious, won't roast or freeze or whatever in hell. I won me a "get out of jail free" card."  
  
He didn't like the sound of that. Maybe if she was alive somewhere (okay, technically she wasn't - what did you call this state? Limbo caused by   
  
divine reflex?), it wouldn't be so bad. "Is that what you want?"  
  
That question actually seemed to puzzle her. "I don't know. I wasn't really expecting a third act. Of course, I wasn't expecting the second either, so you can see how good I am at predictions."  
  
"why did you have to do that? Why couldn't you have just waited for me to get back on the bridge and -"  
  
"And what?" She interrupted impatiently. "Let him smack you down again? I know you're a tactician, so use your head and stop thinking with other organs. He knew you were there, and he certainly had Bob where he wanted him. He had already forgotten about me, considering me as out of the fight as you and Bob did, which meant I had the best chance to take the bastard down. Element of surprise, sen'yuu. Am I right or what? Did I get him or not?"  
  
He scowled at her, because this was essentially dirty pool, and she knew it, especially her calling him the Japanese for "comrade in arms". At least there was no doubt it was her. "You did. But it wasn't worth your life."  
  
"My decision, my risk. I ended the fight. And those who die with the most toys win - or did those t-shirts lie to me?"  
  
He shook his head and looked away, still not ready to laugh. He wondered how she could joke about her own death, but, as she had pointed out, this wasn't exactly a new experience for her. He didn't realize a tear had escaped from one of his eyes until she wiped it away with her thumb. "Hey, none of this. Didn't I already give you the speech?"  
  
He grimace, and still found it hard to look into her onyx eyes, no matter how clear and steady they were. "I'm still sorry."  
  
"Don't be. Ask Wesley to give you my Watcher file; I was one blood thirsty bitch, hon. You wouldn't believe how many Slayers I killed. Well, until the Buddhists decided to whack me with existential despair. I don't deserve this reprieve, not really, and I know it."  
  
"You saved the world. Doesn't that clean the slate?"  
  
She shook her head, and he knew why he could have loved her. "It shouldn't, not for some of us." Suddenly she grabbed his face in her hands, and said, "And I damn well don't mean you. Don't go on that self-pity trip. I know people, Logan; it's my job as a vampire to pick my food well. And you're a good man."  
  
He snorted derisively, and attempted to look away. "Good at killing shit."  
  
"You do what you have to do, but you are not the killer they want you to think you are. Training doesn't make the man, and I'm with Bob on this one: free will is all that counts. If you didn't do it on your own impetus, it doesn't count. I've killed because I wanted to, because it kept me alive, because it gave me pleasure - I liked doing it. And even with all the ennui that got forced me, I still got a little thrill when I killed someone I felt deserved it. If I was Human, I'd be psychotic; but since I'm a vamp, it's just what we do. I wasn't even considered a psycho vamp; those fuckers are unbelievable. And you have never been anywhere near our league." He started to tell her she was wrong, and he had witnesses to prove it, when she put a finger firmly over his lips, and said, "Don't argue with the dead. It's bad luck."  
  
He raised an eyebrow at that, and carefully removed her finger. "You just made that up."  
  
"Yes. But I'm kicking with a bored vengeance goddess who would probably fuck with you in subtle ways if I asked her to, so don't tempt me."  
  
"Subtle?"  
  
"You'll never find your keys again."  
  
He was unable to suppress a smirk, even though he could still feel the tears in his eyes. "You're not kidding, are you?"  
  
"I don't bluff," she replied, deadpan, and then pulled him down for a kiss.  
  
Logan still felt like he had a clenched muscle in the center of his chest, but while Yasha was dead to him, she wasn't technically completely dead yet. It wasn't exactly a happy ending by any means, but it wasn't as bad as it had felt five minutes ago, back on Earth.  
  
It wasn't perfect, but he knew he could learn to live with it.  
  
*****  
  
The End  
  
(Well, for now, okay…) 


End file.
